YOUTH AND THE
MOUNTAINS
Volume I
2013
YOUTH AND THE
MOUNTAINS
StudSetnutd Eenssta Eysss oanys S ouns tSauinsatabilnea Mbloeu Mntoauin tDaienv eDleovpemloepnmt ent
Editor-in-Chief:
Dr. David R. Connelly
History & Political Science Chair
Assistant Editor/Administrative Support:
Kimberly Williamson
Utah Valley University Faculty:
Dr. Keith Snedegar, Professor of History
Dr. Baktybek Abdrisaev, Lecturer in Political Science
Dr. Michael Minch, Associate Professor of Philosophy and
director of Peace and Justice Studies
Sara Ulloa, Assistant Professor of Languages
Community Support:
Robin Bucaria, teacher from Copper Hills High School in West
Jordan, Utah
Utah Valley University Students:
Jordan Giles
Jesler Molina
Mark Petersen
Utah Valley University
800 University Parkway
Mailstop 185
Orem, Utah 84058
801-863-8487
Editorial Board
YOUTH AND THE
MOUNTAINS
The following essays are on a variety of themes that relate to sustain-able
mountain development, both at home in Utah and around the
world. They cover such varied topics as conflict in mountainous re-gions,
alternative energy production, political arrangements, and the
importance of women in mountainous communities. This volume in-cludes
essays that were written by students at Utah Valley University
and also includes essays written by local high school students who
competed in the Utah High School Essay contest, held in 2011, 2012
and 2013.
Student Essays on Sustainable Mountain Development
Table of Contents
Introduction: Dr. David Connelly………………...………………..1
Introductory Essay: “Sustainability of Prophetic Politics: Defini-tion,
Differentiae, and Deterrents to Sustainability in Societies”
Author: Luis Alfonso Miranda Perez…………………...…………5
SECTION I:
MOUNTAIN ISSUES IN UTAH AND IN THE UNITED
STATES
“Conflict in the State of Utah: A Survey of Conflict Among the
Indigenous Paiutes and Modern Threats to State Security”
Author: John McClure……………………..……………………..17
“Mormon’s Political Challenges Settling in Utah”
Author: Jordan Giles…………………..…………………………29
“Consequences of Environmental Service Agreements in Wasatch
County”
Author: Jordan Giles......................................................................39
“Sustainable Mountain Development: State Rights vs. Federal
Rights”
Author: Thomas Hone……………………………………………46
“American Attitudes towards the Global Warming Consensus”
Author: Gregory Haddock………………………………………..57
SECTION II:
INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAIN ISSUES
“Mountain Conflicts: The Ferghana Valley”
Author: Alexis Sagen…………………………………………..…66
“An Andean Perspective”
Author: Will Welch……………………………………………….84
“Women of the Andes: How Secular Education Enhances Women’s
Health and Society in General”
Author: Jared Martin……………..………………………………90
SECTION III:
UTAH HIGH SCHOOL ESSAY WINNERS
2013 Winner:
Maranda Fisher
“Running Out of Water”………...………………………………103
2013 Second Place Winner:
Quinn Everett
“The Case against Water Contamination in Utah: The Hazardous
Factors that Led to Pollution and the Poor Policies that Tolerate it”
…………………………………………...........................…...…109
2013 Third Place Winner:
Maison Evensen
“Water Rights and Preservation”………………………………..116
2012 Winner:
Justin Ngo
“Wind Energy for Mountainous Regions”………………...……122
2012 Second Place Winner:
Jacob Adler
“Sustainable Energy Sources and Benefits of Thorium in Modern
Society”……………………………..............………………….126
2012 Third Place Winner:
Amber Kelpacz
“Micro-Hydro Power”……………………………...…………...132
.
2011 Winner:
Shelby Jorgensen
“Women’s Education in Mountainous Regions”………………..137
2011 Second Place Winner:
Katie Pontsler
“Women of the Mountains: Past and Present: What Can We Learn
From These Brave Souls?”……………......…………………….142
2011 Third Place Winner:
Ivan Delgadillo
“The Benefits of Mountainous Communities Can Achieve Through
Women and Education”…………………………………………146
1
Introduction
Whaia te iti kahuranga ki te tuahu koe me he maunga teitei.
Aim for the highest cloud so that if you miss it, you will hit
a lofty mountain. – Maori Proverb
Utah Valley University, its faculty and students have set
high and lofty goals in the area of sustainable mountain develop-ment.
Utah Valley University joined the United Nations-related
Mountain Partnership in 2006 in an effort to reach out to other
mountain communities; from the mountain community that Utah
Valley University calls home to the mountain communities around
the world in an effort to strengthen co-operation and understand-ing
of the challenges and issues that are unique to mountain living.
Since 2006 Utah Valley University has hosted three ‘Women of the
Mountains’ conferences; two in Utah and one in Peru. We have also
organized the ‘International Mountain Day’ three times in order to
promote mountain issues in the state of Utah and beyond its borders.
Utah Valley University also sent a delegation to the United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) that was held
in Rio de Janeiro in June of 2012. Utah Valley University faculty
and students were able to contribute their thoughts and ideas to the
final document of that conference as well as to the activities under
the umbrella of the Third Global Meeting of the Mountain Partner-ship,
which were held at the Mountain Pavilion during that time.
Mountain issues are of special importance to us as we call
the mountains our home. Utah Valley University is nestled near the
mountain range known as the Wasatch Front. These mountains have
historic significance for all the people of this area. The mountains
have been a source of life and renewal; first to the Native Ameri-cans
who first inhabited this valley and then later to the Mormon
pioneers who used the mountains as a source of water to irrigate
this dry desert land and also as a natural defense against unfriend-ly
armies who sought to push them out of the valley. Mountains
have ever been an indelible part of Utah’s culture and identity.
Raising awareness of mountain issues and creating part-nerships
among mountain communities had been at the heart of
2
all of Utah Valley University’s efforts as a member of the Moun-tain
Partnership. These efforts have had a positive affect for all
who become involved. Utah Valley University students who dili-gently
work with their professors to achieve these goals find them-selves
a part of a global network of mountain communities; they
have seen beyond the boundaries of their own mountains and gain
an increased understanding of the world around them through
firsthand experience. This firsthand experience is in keeping with
the commitment to engaged learning that Utah Valley University
strives for. While many undergraduate universities in North Amer-ica
learn about international diplomacy from books, Utah Valley
University students have opportunities to learn about it from first-hand
experience. And they even created a vehicle for that purpose
by uniting in a coalition of several student clubs at Utah Valley
University, named Utah International Mountain Forum (UIMF).
This volume is symbolic of the efforts of Utah Valley Uni-versity
and UIMF to raise its students as a new generation of lead-ers
in advocacy of the United Nations-related sustainable mountain
development (SMD) agenda within Utah and the region. It con-tains
student essays that discuss the issues of SMD such as the en-vironment
protection, conflict resolution, and alternative energy
use in the mountain regions, the need to constantly be listening
to the prophetic voices among us, gender issues, and the benefits
of governments working together for the good of the mountains.
In section I of this volume essays that related the mountain
issues of Utah and the United States are considered. The conflicts
of the early Mormon pioneers are discussed as well as their political
challenges settling the Utah Valley. Governmental cooperation in
sustaining mountain environments is also a focus on one of the papers.
Section II contains essays that discuss mountain is-sues
in different parts of the globe such as the Ferghana Val-ley
in the mountains of Central Asia and the Andes Mountains.
The final section highlights the successes that Utah Val-ley
University and UIMF has had with the High School Essay
contests with topic chosen to cover mountain issues designated
by the United Nations for every year. The Utah Valley Universi-ty
High School Essay Contests began in 2011 to coincide with the
3
second Women of the Mountains International Conference that
was held in Orem, Utah. High school students from around the
Utah and Salt Lake Valleys were asked to submit essays on top-ics
related to the event. As an established tradition to host those
gathering annually, similar contests were held in 2012 and 2013.
Although, Utah Valley University’s students efforts were
overlooked in the United Nations Secretary General’s (UNSG) re-port
in 2013 on sustainable mountain development, nevertheless,
we will continue to engage youth for the mountain cause advoca-cy
both in the Rocky Mountain region and globally. We hope the
publishing of our first volume of student essay’s will be significant
proof of the renewed efforts from Utah Valley University’s students
as a whole in achieving their goal to make a real difference in the
lives of the local and international communities. The distribution of
Volume I of Youth and the Mountains is scheduled for the 4th Glob-al
Meeting of the Mountain Partnership held in Erzurum, Turkey.
In attempting to change the world in this way
Utah Valley University students are aiming for the clouds
but if we miss, according to the proverb, we will hit the
lofty mountains. The lofty mountains we call home.
David R. Connelly, Editor-in-Chief
Introductory Essay
5
Sustainability of Prophetic Politics Definition, Differentiae
and Deterrents to Sustainability in Societies
By Luis Alfonso Miranda Pérez
Luis Alfonso Miranda Perez is a recent graduate from Utah Valley University, who majored
in Philosophy and minored in Peace and Justice Studies. He comes from a pragmatic
background, having managed humanitarian efforts in Mexico and Central America, youth
leadership projects in Czech Republic and the Netherlands, and a social enterprise in
Japan. He has published and presented his research on the sustainability of democratic
politics and peace. Perez has recently completed the Peace Research program at the Uni-versity
of Oslo. He speaks English, Spanish, French, and Russian. Most recently, he served
as the Co-Chair of the Student Leadership Group at the 1st Russian-American Youth Sum-mit.
Perez intends to attend a premier foreign affairs or conflict transformation graduate
program, as he is in the journey to become a peace mediator.
Although normally understood primarily as a theological notion,
the prophetic is also political. Before introducing my argument, it is im-portant
that we know what the prophetic is, what its distinctions are, and
clarify its notion. To provide context on the question I will pursue, I will
introduce Brueggemann’s views on the task of the prophetic. I will then
follow by sharing the distinctions of the prophetic from Riemer. I will
then solidify the concept and value of the prophetic and will afterwards
introduce the question I seek to explore.
First, Brueggemann defines the task of the prophetic ministry as
to cultivate and evoke a perception alternative to the consciousness of the
dominant culture through criticizing and energizing the alternative com-munity.
Brueggemann believes the prophetic tradition began during the
biblical times of the exodus of the Hebrews from the Pharaoh’s Egypt,
where Moses, a prophet, catalyzed an alternative perception and main-tained
an alternative community to challenge and inspire a partition from
the dominant Egyptian community around them.1 To fulfill the task of cul-tivating
the alternative consciousness, prophets fill the role of criticizers
and energizers. Prophets criticize to deconstruct the dominant conscious-ness.
2 Prophets bring into visibility the existence of a better future against
the realities of the old order to energize.3
Second, Riemer makes the distinctions between the prophetic and
the predictive, the apocalyptic, and the utopian. When talking about the
prophetic, we are not necessarily speaking about predicting or forecast-ing
the future. Rather, prophets are people who speak the words of God,
1Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination, 2nded. Minneapolis: For-tress
Press, 2001, 5.
2Ibid., 3.
3Ibid., 14.
6
provide constructive insights about the gap between ideals and reality, and
demand a fulfillment of God’s will. Similarly, secular prophets are people
who believe in a set of superior universal values, criticize the failure to live
by these values, and demand a redirection to live by them. The prophetic
also isn’t apocalyptic. The prophetic believes that it is in the power of
the people to transform the world within a conventional or constitutional
framework, unlike the apocalyptic which holds that people are insignifi-cant
in changing the course of humanity. Lastly, it is necessary to note the
difference between the prophetic and the utopian. Whereas the utopian
holds a belief that earthly salvation is attainable, the prophetic doesn’t
assume the possibility of being perfect, nevertheless, the prophetic strives
for continuous improvement.4
Prophets are distinguishable characters. Prophets have a great
sensitivity to evil. They have an uncanny ability to detect the intentions
of peoples and policies. Prophets also give importance to the ordinary.
They care about every action, emotion, or decision, as meager or as ample
as it may be, as they see every single decision as elemental to achieving a
grander change. Prophets are luminous and explosive. They are fearless
to voice their opinions and are gifted in communicating and ingraining
into people their vision about the status quo and the future. Prophets are
also iconoclasts. They relentlessly seek to destroy the symbols of social
and religious injustice. Prophets are austerely compassionate. They are
ascetics, dedicated to help humanity and to bring their prophetic vision
to reality. Prophets are skilled or gifted in the use of moral persuasion.
They are persuasive when voicing their vision of a moral living, efficient
at making us feel morally deficient for our failure to do so, and compel us
morally to change our way of living to accommodate a more just society.
Prophets may be singular in ends, but different in means. They might
share, more or less, the ideal of living in a morally just society, but they
might differ in the moral means to achieve it. This means that there are
different traditions of the prophetic. Jesus Christ, Wangari Maathai, Karl
Marx, Mohandas Gandhi, Noam Chomsky, and Martin Luther King Jr.
can be considered examples of prophetic people. The International Com-mittee
of the Red Cross, the International Labor Organization, the United
Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, and African American
Churches during the American civil rights movements could be consid-ered
examples of prophetic institutions.
For social, political, or economic change to come about there must
be a prophetic voice. It is the prophetic voice that serves to disturb us out
of our way of living and engage us in a moral companionship to transform
4Neil, Riemer. Karl Marx and Prophetic Politics. New York: Praeger, 1987, 2-3.
7
society. The prophetic serves as our society’s consciousness. Without any
moral consciousness in policy formulation and implementation, the peace
of a society degrades.5 Lederach says that practical mechanisms similar to
prophetic institutions are needed to define responses from crises in order
to define the future instead of the crisis itself.6 Prophetic-like behavior is
invaluable to continue to transform our societies and to foster peaceful
cohabitation.7
From understanding the value of prophetic to societies and from
witnessing the discontinuity in presence of prophetic traditions, two ques-tions
become attractive to inquisition: How do we attain a prophetic tradi-tion
and how do we sustain a prophetic tradition? For the purposes of this
essay, I will explore the latter question with a more specific perspective.
Although it is important to pursue an understanding of the methodology of
attaining a prophetic culture in societies, it is also important to understand
the issues surrounding the sustainability of a prophetic culture. I will thus
attempt to identify the obstacles to sustaining a prophetic culture within a
society. Societies in which people become either prohibited or antagonized
to follow the four commitments of prophetic politics, due to the obstacles
posed by the Royal Consciousness, will render their prophetic cultures
volatile and unsustainable. To argue this conclusion, I will first explore
the four major commitments of the prophetic politics according to Riemer,
and afterwards engage the concept of Royal Consciousness, according to
Brueggemann, by explaining how it is an obstacle to the sustainability of
a prophetic culture. After that, I will defend my argument from a critique
pertaining sustainability and attainability of prophetic movements, and I
will finish by substantiating my claim through case studies with Mohandas
Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
We must understand the four major commitments of prophetic
politics in order to grasp its relation to the King Consciousness. The four
major commitments are: (1) to value a superior cosmopolitan order; (2)
to social deductive analysis and indomitable criticism of all sociopolitical
orders; (3) to innovative constitutional improvement; and (4) to constant
prophetic scrutiny and visionary projections.8
5Oppenheim, Felix E. The Place of Morality in Foreign Policy. Lexington, MA:
Lexington Books, 1991.
6Lederach, John Paul. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided
Societies. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace,1997, 79.
7MacNair, Rachel M. The Psychology of Peace: An Introduction. West Port, CT:
Praeger, 2003, 141.
8Riemer, Neil. Let Justice Roll: Prophetic Challenges in Religion, Politics, and
Society. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1996, 5.
8
The first major commitment of the prophetic politics is to value of
a superior cosmopolitan order. This means that the prophetic is committed
to act upon values that are universally shared by everyone such as peace,
love, human rights, social justice, ecological health, etc.9 This commitment
establishes a set of universal ethics that require governance to be profitable
for all humans.
The second major commitment of prophetic politics is to social
deductive analysis and indomitable criticism of all sociopolitical orders.
According to Riemer, “[a] sensitivity to the “least free” requires criticism
of all political orders . . . in which the “least free” are struggling for eman-cipation
and fulfillment.”10 To protect the “least free” that Riemer speaks
of, the prophetic must investigate and analyze how the human condition
is being affected by the status quo. This commitment seeks to dissect the
current reality into such depth that it allows for scientific articulation of an
alternative way to that of the dominant culture.
The third major commitment of prophetic politics is to innovative
constitutional improvement. As we are faced with many complex prob-lems,
we require action that is creative, intelligent, and constitutional. The
prophetic necessitates the belief that ideals are attainable. It is through
covenantal or constitutional breakthroughs that the prophetic can cement
progress in narrowing the gap between the prophetic paradigm and reali-ty.
11
The fourth major commitment of the prophetic politics is to con-stant
prophetic scrutiny and visionary projections. This commitment re-quires
the prophetic to voice a projection of the moral world that the pro-phetic
paradigm envisions. This projection links the present decisions and
the future consequences as to achieve a moral accountability and to appeal
to an excitement towards modeling a desirable future.12
The commitments of the prophetic, as described by Riemer, and
the tasks of the prophetic, as described by Brueggemann, are implicitly
related. The four major commitments represent the normative philosophy
of the prophetic whereas the tasks of criticizing and energizing represent
the applied philosophy of the prophetic. One is moral commitment and the
other is moral action. The key to being prophetic is that a prophet must act
upon the prophetic paradigm. When a prophetic paradigm is characterized
by a commitment to a superior ethical order, the concrete coefficient is the
cultivation of an alternative consciousness. Criticism with an objective to
9Ruener, 6.
10Ibid.
11 Ibid.,7.
12Ibid.,8.
9
create a counterculture from a dominant culture requires a commitment
to indomitable criticism of that dominant culture. The prophetic commit-ment
of innovative constitutional improvements guides the conscious lib-eration
from the dominant consciousness. Without the moral persuasion
of visionary projections, it is impossible to energize people into becoming
part of the alternative community.
A prophetic culture allows for alternative communities to be culti-vated.
Both applied theory, meaning the prophetic tasks of criticizing and
energizing, and normative theory, meaning the four major commitments
of the prophetic politics, are necessary to help develop and sustain the
counterculture. The greatest obstacle in being able to sustain a prophetic
culture is the presence of the Royal Consciousness. Biblically, the Royal
Consciousness is the historical program with which Solomon dismantled
the Mosaic prophetic tradition.13 For our purposes it is equivalently the
sociological, political, economic inverse function of the prophetic mode.
The Royal Consciousness served to dismantle the alternative and prophet-ic
consciousness behind the Mosaic, pre-Solomon Hebrew society.14 I will
explain how the three dimensions of the Royal Consciousness affect the
applied and the normative sustainability of the prophetic. I will proceed
by articulating on the dimensions of Economics of Affluence, Oppressive
Social Policy, and Static Religion and their relation as obstacles to the
sustainability of prophetic cultures in societies.
When a society is affected by the Economics of Affluence, an ob-stacle
to the prophetic tasks is posed. “It is difficult to keep a revolution
of freedom and justice under way when there is satiation.”15 Scarcity is
the insufficiency that causes a psychological tickling of the curiosity of
individuals to change something in their behavior to achieve sufficiency.
Scarcity is the uncomfortable tension that happens when someone feels
that their condition does not do justice to them, and this very creative
tension drives them to pursue ways of achieving justice for their condi-tions.
16 The prophetic seeks to find and recognize these insufficiencies or
scarcities, make them visible, and this very act energizes people to change
their behavior. Scarcity, the opposite condition of affluence, is the fuel that
energizes prophetic movements. It is logical, thus, that if the absence of
scarcity, meaning affluence, is to be present in the consciousness of a soci-
13Brueggeman, 25.
14Ibid.
15Brueggeman, 26.
16King, Martin Luther, Jr. I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that
Changed the World, ed. By James Melvin. New York: Harper Collins,
1992, 87.
10
ety, then people would feel less energized to be part of a counterculture, a
resistance culture that requires energy to continue. A condition that Brueg-gemann
suggests is that affluence is malign when it isn’t democratically
distributed.17 Say we have two sectors of society. The first sector happens
to be the prosperous minority and also in power in respect to policy formu-lation.
The second sector happens to be the destitute majority and without
representation in respect to policy formulation. If prosperous, would the
first sector be easily compelled to change policy to suit for the justice of
all, if their needs are already meet and the accommodation would likely
mean a return to scarcity? It is logical to conjecture that the prosperous
sector wouldn’t be as motivated to bring about superior justice as they
would be if they were living under more scarce conditions. When afflu-ence
is present in the consciousness, people feel less compelled to engage
in a prophetic movement. Any movement requires the use of energy, and
if the supply of energy is not continuous, then the movement will become
unsustainable and volatile.
The presence of affluence doesn’t signify the death of action, but
it is likely to distort the moral compass behind the decision of an action.
Affluence doesn’t mean that people won’t make decisions. People make
decisions whether to do things, or not to do things. To decide, one must act
according with their morality. The moral compass of a prophetic decision
is characterized by the four commitments of the prophetic politics. When
affluence is present in the consciousness, it distorts the person’s ability
to make judgments cohesive with the prophetic paradigm. According to
sociological research, there is a relation between making moral decisions
and the self-concept of the person making the decision. People generally
evaluate who they are, and their relationship with others while making
moral decisions.18 The relationship between affluence and the normative-ly
prophetic is that when people under an affluent condition are to make
moral decisions, and they evaluate their self-concept against their status
of affluence, it is less likely that they will commit to prophetic action.
An interesting biblical example that was posed by Brueggemann when he
commented on his model is the example of the Biblical Solomonic society.
He says that the prophetic commitments, inherited from the Mosaic tradi-tion
promoted the idea of taking seriously the needs over their fellow be-ings,
were replaced by consuming-based priority in the affluent Solomonic
society. This changed the attitudes within the population; it encouraged
objectifying their fellow beings as products to be used rather than fellow
17Brueggeman, 26.
18Turner, R. H. “Self and Other in Moral Judgment.” American Sociological
Review, 19, no. 3 (June 1954): 249-259, 258.
11
people to be taken care of. Sustainability of a prophetic culture is difficult
according to Brueggemann in this sort of society where consuming is the
priority.19
Oppressive Social Policy is the foundation of the systematic re-striction
of prophetic discourse. Freedom is the societal pillar through
which many prophetic traditions and their respective societies can devel-op,
as suggested by prophetic paradigms of the likes of Marx,20 King,21
Gandhi,22 and West.23 Some prophets disagree on how to attain that free-dom,
whether by coercion, in the case of Marx24 or moral persuasion, in
the case of Gandhi25 and King.26 Nevertheless, in order to criticize or
energize, the prophetic action requires some sort of freedom to be able to
fulfill its commitments to indomitable criticism of all sociopolitical orders.
The task of criticizing is implicitly interwoven with the task of energizing,
and the systematic oppression of one is inherently of the other.
Rather, what the Oppressive Social Policy endeavors to do is halt
any possibility counter movements, and reallocate, through policy formu-lation,
the energy of the oppressed into the support of the continuous un-democratic
affluent state. During the early history of the United States of
America, African Americans were forced into slavery. Even though the
conventional values of the foundation of the country were said to advocate
that all men were created equal, these values were proven to be misno-mers
to the cause of championing of equality and democracy towards all,
regardless of race. In regards to policy, constitutionally speaking, an Af-rican
American was considered three fifths of a citizen in representation.27
Nevertheless, the unprophetic system of slavery was still the rule and the
cotton industry continued to enrich the dominant white population. Any-one
who dared to question, criticize, or create a consciousness alternative
to the status quo, was punished. Take the creation of the slave codes in
the state of Georgia in 1858 which handed anything from fines, to incar-
19Brueggeman, 200. 27.
20Riemer, Karl Marx and Prophetic Politics, 26-29.
21King, 109.
22Gandhi, Mahatma. The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of his Writings on
His Life, Work, and Ideas, ed. by Louis Fischer. New York: Vintage Books,
1983,192.
23West, Cornel. Prophesy Delivrance!: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christi-anity.
Anniversary edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,2002,
8-9.
24Riemer. Karl Marx and Prophetic Politics,86.
25Gandhi, 79.
26King, 30-31.
27US Constitution. Art I, Sec 2.
12
ceration, for assembling, to prohibition of teaching, reading, or writing to
any slaves.28 West explains this to be a natural reaction of the Royal Con-sciousness.
Every system of domination, in any aspect of society, fears
the presence of the prophetic and will seek to extinguish it.29 The danger
that Oppressive Social Policy poses is that it tends to occlude the path of
the free development of the prophetic. Where the prophetic commitment
to innovative constitutional developments meets the dominant-culture’s
denial to negotiate, the prohibition of discourse that is characteristically
prophetic is found. If a society lacks any sort of fundamental protection
from the systematic prohibition posed by Oppressive Social Policy to-wards
the prophetic, then their prophetic cultures will become weak and
unsustainable.
The establishment of a Static Religion poses the issue of blind pa-triotism.
Although Brueggemann thinks that the Economics of Affluence
and the Oppressive Social Policy were the greatest nullifiers of the alter-native
community of Moses, he asserts that the achievement wasn’t made
without a theological endorsement of the society. This theological en-dorsement
was part of Brueggeman’s theological dimension of the Static
Religion which meant the establishment of a King-regulated accessibility
to God.30 The psycho-political equivalent to Static Religion is the concept
of blind patriotism. Characterized by subjective positive analysis, never
ailing allegiance, and intolerance to prophetic criticism, blind patriotism
is an inflexible favorable attitude towards the state.31 Blind patriotism is a
state of consciousness in which a sentimental and uncritical abandonment
of constructive political engagement happens and the decision making is
sanctioned by the elite of the society. Admittedly, blind patriotism is the
conscious effect of the sociopolitical presence of Static Religion. When
in the presence of Static Religion, people surrender their ability to make
personal judgments which simultaneously relinquishes their ability to be
characteristically prophetic. It would be illogical to assume that one can
continue to be prophetic if one refuses to honestly recognize the faults in
the dominant consciousness and commit to remedy these faults, even if
it means to stand in full opposition of the much idolized dominant con-sciousness.
As a Machiavellian reaction, Static Religion antagonizes criti-
28Wilson, Edward G. A Digest of all the Ordinances of the City of Savannah, and
Various Laws of the State of Georgia, Relative to Said City, Which Were of Force
on the 1st January 1858… Savannah,: John M. Cooper & Co.,182.
29West.
30Brueggeman, 28-31.
31Schatz, Robert T., Ervin Staub, and Howard Lavine. “On the Varieties of
National Attachment: Blind versus Constructive Patriotism.” Political Psy-chology,
20, no.1 (March 1999): 151-174.
13
cal attitudes toward their institutional protégé.
A clear case study can be done with the Muslim-Hindu affairs
during the period of the liberation of India. Gandhi advocated for an im-mediate
commencement of reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims.
However, the opposing parties, being statically religious to their move-ments,
became uncritical of themselves, which led them to engage in a
viciously violent and competitive relationship. Gandhi, a vocal supporter
of unity and justice between Hindus and Muslims in India was seen as a
threat to the patriotic attitudes of the Hindu Nationalist. Soon after the par-tition
of India, Gandhi was assassinated at the hands of Nathuram Godse
under the premise that Gandhi was appeasing Muslims at the expense of
Hindus.32 Today, we have an India and a Pakistan who have gone through
three major wars, one minor war, and have seen themselves at the edge
of nuclear war in a few occasions. The Indo- Pakistani relations have not
yet achieved a sustainable peace in the region. The prophetic movement
that sought unification and peace amongst people has since then almost
extinguished. When Static Religion is present in a society, its phenomena
is antagonizing and its consequence to the prophetic is that it renders it
unsustainable and more volatile.
Alternative cultures need to be cultivated. They are living and
learning social organisms. Prophetic movements grow and shrink. They
are born and some of them die. Their niche is to catalyze just and peace-ful
societies. In order for the prophetic sustain its task of criticizing and
energizing, there must be a freedom in its society to pursue the prophetic
paradigm. I have presented here the obstacles to fulfilling those tasks in
the matter of the three dimension of the Royal Consciousness. If pro-phetic
movements aren’t protected against the Royal Consciousness, they
become hindered in the presence of affluence, prohibited in the presence
of socially oppressive policy, and antagonized in the presence of state
idolatry. They encounter difficulty, become volatile, and are eventually
rendered unsustainable.
This is not to say that prophetic cultures can’t be born in the pres-ence
of the Royal Consciousness. Gandhi began his liberation movement
from imperial Britain in South Africa, after a first class privilege was de-nied
in a train, and a small group of people decided to meet to talk and
begin to plant a dissenting seed that grew into a larger scale movement that
gave birth to more critically prophetic institutions like the Indian Opinion
and the South African Indian Congress.33 Martin Luther King Jr. joined
a Civil Rights movement that was growing from a decade before. What
32 Gandhi, 307-321.
33 Gandhi, 31-75.
14
made King monumentally influential was his way of energizing the alter-native
community to a stratum so unprecedented, that for the first time, the
African American counterculture was so relevant that the dominant con-sciousness
could not ignore it. If no injustices are present, the prophetic
would not be present. It is necessary for injustice or oppression to exist
in order for the prophetic to come into practice. Therefore, my argument
about sustainability is not meant to answer the question of how to attain
prophetic cultures. Having in mind, however, the delicate necessities in
cultivating an alternative consciousness in a society, and the effects of
unadulterated exposure to Royal Consciousness, leads us to conclude that
the prophetic isn’t sustainable if it isn’t being protected.
I offer no guidelines of protection of the prophetic. Constructive-ly,
the dire question that follows is: Where can we learn how to protect
prophetic cultures from unsustainability? If one is to accept that the pro-phetic
and the counter-prophetic to be a philosophical discipline of the
that exists only outside of our senses, or that they are metaphysical in that
only a transcendental presence can provide us with an understanding of
them, then such question begs a theological response, and risks never to
be answered under present social scientific methods. However, from my
perspective, the prophetic and the counter prophetic are phenomena that
are economic, political, and sociological in nature. This means that the
discipline of the prophetic is empirical, methodological, and tangibly pal-pable.
If such, then we can say that in order to understand how to move
away from unsustainability, the answer will reside in a holistic approach in
policy, attitudinal formulation, and implementation in the fields of social,
political, and economic science. And yet, even though I accept the pro-phetic
and the counter-prophetic to be empirical, I can’t deny the profound
personal sentiment that that the prophetic is nonetheless transcendentally
cosmic and divine.
Section I:
Mountain Issues in Utah and In the United States
16
Conflict in the State of Utah: A Survey of Conflict Among the
Indigenous Paiutes and Modern Threats to State Security
By John McClure
John McClure is an honors graduate of Utah Valley University. He received his bachelor
of arts in International Relations. During his time at Utah Valley University, McClure led
seven different campus organizations in efforts regarding sustainable mountain develop-ment,
political engagement, and student government. He has been published several times
on topics of conflict in mountain regions and terrorism. He has also taken part in glob-al
efforts in Sustainable Mountain Development and International Security including the
Rio+20 Global Conference in Brazil as well as the Stanford University US/Russia Forum
in Moscow. McClure is currently attending graduate school at the University of St. Andrews
in Scotland. He is earning a master’s degree in Terrorism and Security Studies from the
oldest and one of the most prestigious programs in the world. After graduation, McClure
is eager to begin work in the field toward the study and prevention of terrorism as well as
aspects of diplomacy and the relevance of regional conflict to sustainable development.
Conflict is a term often used synonymously with mountainous
regions. The most numerous conflicts in the world occur within mountain
zones.1 Upon recognition that conflict is predominantly a mountain issue,
it is important to identify both the factors that cause conflict, and the fac-tors
that exacerbate conflict in mountain regions and amongst mountain
people. Primary factors that cause conflict in mountain regions include:
isolation, governmental oppression, and the threat of emerging statehood,
the last being the major cause of regional conflict within mountain zones.
The underlying factors that add to the rise of conflict in mountain regions
are: ineffective governance, poor resource management, and the rise of
communications.2 These factors both primary and underlying lead to var-ious
types of conflict and consequences that have long term effects on
mountain people.
This research will underline key issues of conflict within the state
of Utah; beginning with its initial development as a state and concluding
with pressing issues that face the state today. Key elements of root con-flict,
and insights into conflict prevention will also be addressed. Evidence
will be provided to show that conflict in Utah historically stems from the
same catalysts of conflict as in other mountain societies, and that through
research of past issues of conflict within the state of Utah, regional experts
are able to provide information that directly leads to best practices in con-flict
resolution.
Paiute Conflict with a Eurocentric Settlement
1 Starr, Frederick. Key Issues for Mountain Areas. editors Martin Price, et al.
United Nations University Press, 169.
2 Ibid., 170-173.
17
Within Utah’s history of conflict regarding mountain people, the
Paiute tribe has undergone many of the textbook elements that create and
exacerbate conflict within their mountainous regions. The primary issue
that has created conflict within this indigenous people is the threat of an
emerging state and its accompanying govemental oppression. The under-lying
issues that exacerbate this conflict are resource management and
isolation. As late as the mid nineteenth century, the southern Paiutes were
primarily a hunter-gatherer society who also relied on small-scale hor-ticulture.
The Paiutes planted and irrigated gardens of corn, beans, and
squash next to permanent sources of water.3 In the 1850s the Mormon
Church, which was centralized in Salt Lake City, organized colonies of
settlers to be dispatched and ordered to build communities next to virtually
all water sources in the Paiute inhabited country.
Over the next sixty years, the Mormon settlers appropriated the
Paiute land and assumed control of the most precious resource available to
the indigenous people: water. Within this span of six decades, the Paiutes
were successfully conquered and relegated to four small tracts of land.
These mountain people were subject to isolation and removed from access
to their natural resources, both of which are underlying sources of conflict
that arise from the primary source of an emerging state. 4
During the first ten years of Paiute/ Mormon interaction, there was
competition for resources in the region. These two ethnic groups freely
contended to limit the other’s access to water sources. In the early stages
of Mormon community development, there were power struggles and im-balances.
Over time, the Mormons signed peace treaties with neighboring
allies of the Paiutes, limiting their ability to garner strength in numbers
and effectively limiting their chances of regaining their territory by force.
In the ensuing years, the Mormons monopolized Paiute land and resources
by overwhelming not only the Paiutes, but their aboriginal competitors.
This severely limited the adaptive capabilities of the Paiutes to the new
Eurocentric culture, and represented an effort by the Mormon settlers to
establish a territory of their own through the exploitation of both natural
resources and those currently in possession of them.5 Such actions embody
another subcategory of conflict causation: the natural resource diversion
by an external entity within a community of mountain dwellers without
3 Evans, Michael J., and Stoffle, Richard W. “Resource Competition and Popu-lation
Change: A Kaibab Paiute Ethnohistorical Case” The American Society for
Ethnohistory, 23, no. 2 (Spring 1976): 173-197, 175-176.
4 Ibid., 181-182.
5Evans, 183-186.
18
proper compensation.6
Having identified the factors that caused conflict among the Pai-utes
in the nascent stages of the Eurocentric settlements, it is important
to address the consequences and cases that have arisen from this govern-mental
oppression and its road to a new statehood. In doing this it will be
necessary to identify the main contributing factors to conflict, which are:
resources being diverted from mountain people, isolation, and ineffective
governance.
The first case of consequence is the diversion of natural resources
from the Paiutes. In past research on conflict in the mountain regions it is
stated that the most conflict prone communities are those that export nat-ural
resources without the ability to purchase essential goods and services
in return. In the case of the Paiutes, they are no exception. Irrigation ditch-es
dug by Mormon settlers diverted water away from their streams which
not only fed the fields in which their livestock grazed, but also gave life to
their summer food supply of grass and grains.7 Through this exploitation
of the Paiutes resources, and the lack of compensation, they were almost
immediately forced into dependency and wage labor to the very people
who took their resources from them. Between 1926 and 1980, 80 percent
of Paiutes in the state of Utah lived on land that was controlled either
directly or indirectly by the Mormon Church. This indigenous mountain
people of Utah were successfully conquered and their resources effort-lessly
taken from them without compensation, and all without warfare or
treaties. It is important to note that within mountain communities, con-flict
does not always manifest itself in the form of violence or warfare.
And in the case of the Paiutes, the manifestation was the condemnation
of a mountain people by sending out their most precious resource without
compensation.8
The next case of consequence is the isolation of the Paiutes. Iso-lation
is traditionally a source of conflict within mountain communities
that causes dislocation and a psychology of victimhood among its people.
In the case of the Paiutes, they are no exception. Having been removed
from their land and culture, which was developed through centuries of
mountain living, the Paiutes were dislocated and effectively became wards
of the state government.9 The Paiutes were scattered across the state into
6 Starr, 172.
7Knack, Martha C. “Church and State in the History of Southern Paiutes in
Cedar City, Utah.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology. 19, no.
2 (1997): 159-178, 159.
8Ibid.
9Ibid.,161.
19
small reservations that were sometimes devoid of natural resources and
had very minimal attachment to the modern world. Because of this, it was
not uncommon for the tribe to often migrate from reservation to reserva-tion
in order to survive. A diaspora of the Paiute tribes were created as
such. 10
The last case of consequence involving the Paiutes is the inef-fective
governance from the emerging state. In a region of Utah where
the former indigenous people were forced under sectarian control, these
people were not provided adequate representation within the new emerg-ing
governmental body. Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th
century, the Paiutes were governed by Mormon land owners and by the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Neither of these organizations enforced
the First Amendment rights of freedom of religious practices, and even
when the Native American Religious Freedoms Act was enacted, rights
of these mountain people were never protected from the imposition of
an established religion. The result of this lack of representation and inef-fective
governance had severe repercussions on the Paiutes. Aside from
the scattered land that was afforded the Paiutes, their dependency on the
settlers for employment of labor rapidly drove them into poverty, which
lasted well into the 1970s.11
After decades of government neglect, it had finally been recog-nized
that the Paiutes were not benefitting from life under these condi-tions,
and that the issues resulting from the extended hand of the state
government were perpetuating the conflict within this indigenous tribe.
The US government resolved to allocate funds from the federal poverty
program and divert as many Paiutes away from the organized structure of
the Mormon Church. Though the government tried to preserve this moun-tainous
people, several factors still worked against the Paiute Tribe. The
ownership of the land previously inhabited by the Paiute, now owned by
the Church, complicated aspects of the Paiutes life. Their legal standing,
access to housing, economic welfare, and access to health care were all
jeopardized due to state governance.12
The history of this conflict among the Paiutes in the state of Utah
has great relevance to issues in mountain communities around the world.
Through research, certain methods of conflict prevention and best prac-tices
can be derived from a history of conflict causing catalysts, and inef-fective
governance. In a sense, over the span of two centuries, we can ef-fectively
surmise what to avoid in a situation of an emerging government
10 Evans, 191.
11Knack, 169-172.
12Ibid., 172-173.
20
cohabiting with an indigenous mountain people. The information gathered
over time and the research that has since ensued is also indispensable to
the derivation of best practices that can be applied to the preservation of
mountain people, their culture, and way of life. These practices include the
implementation of methods that have already proven themselves, such as:
traditional means already employed by mountain people themselves; ad-dress
security issues and social/economic problems together, not separate-ly;
scale initiatives to the actual needs of the people; actively engage the
mountain community as participants and not merely as welfare recipients;
and to embrace the private sector while simultaneously trying to maintain
a connection to traditional cultures.13
There are a number of solutions that can be applied to help pre-vent
situations of conflict. First, it is important to monitor social as well
as economic conditions. Social and economic conditions exist in parallel
with each other and cannot be effectively ascertained for means of re-search
if not compared in accordance with each other. In the case of the
Paiutes, economic conditions were not taken into consideration. While
social aspects were assessed (the transition of an indigenous way of life
into a semi-subservient labor ready workforce for the new colonists), the
economic conditions in which they lived were not taken into account and
often neglected when transitioning them into a way of life which was for-eign
to their own.
The second practice is the implementation of methods that have
already proven themselves, and to actively engage the mountain commu-nity
as participants and not merely as welfare recipients. In the case of the
Paiutes, the culture of a hunter-gatherer society should have been main-tained
and integrated into the lifestyles of the burgeoning colonists that
were creating new communities and changing the culture and way of life
in the region. Had the Paiutes been able to continue to cultivate the land
and provide resources not only for the new inhabitants, but continue to
hold to the culture that had sustained them for generations prior, the inte-gration
of the Paiutes would have had a much smoother and cohesive inte-gration
into a more modern society. If this practice had taken place, rather
than usurping the Paiute water supply, supplanting the deep rooted culture,
and decreasing the independence of an indigenous people, the avoidance
of driving mountain people into poverty could have been averted by in-cluding
them in the decision making and governing of the community.
This would have also allowed for the Paiutes to maintain a firm hold on
their culture as opposed to a sharp transition into poverty and a life of la-bor
foreign to a mountain people.
13Starr, 177-179.
21
These practices all tie into the last implementation, which is the
scaling of initiatives to meet the actual needs of the mountain people. In
the case of the Paiutes/Mormon conflict, the initiatives of the Mormon
settlers were to move south within the Utah territory, occupy land, and as-sume
control of the most valuable resources in the region. In doing so, they
forced an entire mountain population to impoverishment and dependency,
and nearly eradicated a culture and a way of life. If the initiative had been
scaled to meet the needs of the indigenous people, for example; integration
of the Paiutes into the settlers initiatives by offering fair compensation for
the resources used, or the employment of the Paiutes’ capabilities in the
field of horticulture, then a culture could have been better preserved and
the independence of a mountain people may have been maintained.
Through the research of peace and conflict in the mountain re-gions,
we can adequately gather information that will benefit the moun-tain
community as a whole. Through the implementation of best practices,
the way of life that has become important to mountain people, of who
comprise 24 percent of the global population, can be preserved and may
continue to successfully integrate into a changing society. Resources that
are the driving force for mountain people remain a valuable asset and not
a plunder for the extended hand of emerging governments.
Conflict in Utah Today
As Utah enters a new century, the Native American residents are
still faced with adversity that has been caused by emerging governments.
What was once an emerging government is no longer in its seminal stages,
and the once aboriginal dwellers of Utah are now commingled with gen-erations
upon generations of Utah inhabitants who face very real conflict
on a regular basis. While the natives continue to struggle with an under-representation
and are laden with a indigence that is seemingly unshak-able,
those existing spawn of the original Eurocentric colonizers face new
threats from surrounding entities as well as international organizations
who seek to disrupt their way of life.
Threats to the Original Mountain People
Modern threats to the Native Americans of Utah have ultimate-ly
been caused from a transition of control to dependency. Having been
placed on reservations with lackluster governmental assistance, a culture
that once thrived is now on the fringe. Without any structured or organized
oversight for these reservation communities, gaming and internal corrup-tion
have continued to slow the progress of the Utah Native American as
well as further aid to their indigent existence.14
14Sanders, Sgt. Drew. Interview. West Jordan Police Department, West Jordan,
Utah. May 15, 2012.
22
In the case of the Utah Native Americans, the missing link in the
process to rescue the ailing society is adequate representation within the
Utah legislature. As it is now, there is not one Native American represen-tative
in the Utah House or Senate. This speaks volumes for the amount of
political activity amongst the Native Americans of Utah. Not only are the
indigenous tribes of the state left out of the political process, but the lack
of interest in state governance is continuing to subdue this fledgling demo-graphic.
Until there is the desire for political involvement and integration
from within Utah’s Native American population as well as an adequate
representation in the Utah House, this problem will only perpetuate.
Conflict and Threats to the Modern Indigenous of Utah as a Whole
In the case of the majority population of Utah residents, new is-sues
in conflict have arisen within its mountain communities. These issues
include drug trafficking and the new presence of foreign drug cartels, gang
activity, radical movements and militias, terrorist threats, and a sudden
trend toward extreme racial and cultural diversity. Though these current
issues in Utah differ from those dealt with by the aboriginal and the early
euro American settlers, these issues of conflict all stem from similar seeds
of conflict.
Drug Trafficking and Foreign Cartels
In the case of the rise of drug use, drug trafficking and the insur-gence
of foreign led cartels; these issues all arise from one of the leading
causes of conflict within mountain zones, that of international support and
funding. International support and funding relates to the issue of either
a secular or religious movement, which seeks to mobilize the poor, or
oppressed within a region or community and create a radical movement
or illegal operation for a means to survive. This includes drug produc-tion,
drug trafficking, and cartel activity by a people for means of survival.
These means are provided for by an outside or international entity. In the
case of Utah, Mexican cartels have played a key role in the trafficking and
distribution of illegal narcotics in the state of Utah. Not only have these
outside actors utilized those poor in the state of Utah to move and sell the
illegal narcotics, but the illegal location and cultivation of marijuana by
members of these cartels is also an issue in areas of Utah.
These areas are particularly prone to conflict as since they are
often under the protection of armed cartel members who are under the
directive to protect both the product and their livelihood. Another outside
source has in turn utilized this illegal organizational strategy and collabo-rated
to increase the capital gain on illegal narcotics. Recently it has come
to light that Afghan cartels have been working in conjunction with Mexi-
23
can cartels in the import and distribution of heroin. Afghanistan being one
of the largest producers in the world of the opium poppy used to produce
the illicit drug have since produced cartels that have taken advantage of
the established cartel presence in the state of Utah and used it to increase
their production and global distribution of heroin. 15
Gang Activity and Violent Crime
Another source of conflict in Utah is the presence and increase
of gang activity and violent crime within its mountain communities. This
may in fact be related to the isolation of mountain communities and their
tendency to develop a sense of lawlessness.16 In the case of Utah, gangs
tend to adhere to a racial profile. Mexican and Polynesian Gangs are
among the most prevalent in Utah.17 It is these minority groups that in an
act of persecution band together to facilitate organized crime.18
This rise in gang activity has also lead to a seeming rise in vio-lence
in the state of Utah as well. Another victim of gang activity in the
state is the homeless. Salt Lake City in particular has quite a high home-less
population and the gangs will often threaten these people to provide
cover for various drug transactions. The homeless will often congregate in
public areas such as parks. It is in these areas that these gangs will conceal
themselves in order to undertake illegal transactions. The community will
often turn a blind eye to the plight of the homeless and the Utah gangs will
take advantage of this and utilize them as human camouflage.19
Radical Movements, Militias and Terrorist Threats
Yet another key source of conflict within the state of Utah is radi-cal
movements, militias and terrorist threats. Radical movements and mi-litias
can all be disseminated from the same source. When state govern-ments
fail to address issues from non-governmental forces the breakdown
of legitimate authority fails and leaves the door open for an environment
of minimal security in which to incubate criminal activity.20 This is widely
seen throughout Utah in its self-armed and low governed militia groups.
These groups often form on the basis of radical ideas and arise from a
place of virtual lawlessness. 21 Though these groups primarily contrive
out of foreign groups including cartels, refugees and gangs, many militias
from within Utah’s indigenous do arise. These groups become danger-
15Burbank, Chief Chris. Interview. Salt Lake City Police Department. Salt Lake
City, Utah. October 17, 2012.
16 Starr, 171.
17Burbank.
18 Starr,171.
19Burbank.
20 Starr,174.
21Burbank.
24
ous when they enact on their radical ideas and inflict violence on the sur-rounding
communities. One example relates to the Mexican drug cartels
in Southern Utah engaging in combat with local authorities in protection
of a marijuana crop.22
Terrorist threats have also become a common source of conflict in
the state of Utah. Salt Lake City is one of the sixty-four urban metropolitan
areas that have been designated by the federal government as “high-threat,
high-density” with regard to acts of terrorism.23 Though Utah does not
have a history decorated with terrorist acts, its geographical location and
abundance of natural resources have placed high on the list of potential
areas of terrorist activity after the 9/11 attacks.24 Utah is privy to numerous
reservoirs and watersheds which countless citizens from within the state
and surrounding areas are dependent upon. This makes is an ideal place
for a terrorist strike. Rather than a direct attack such as the 9/11 attacks,
which took the lives of several thousands, an attack on Utah’s water sup-ply
could potentially be detrimental to countless more.25 Another target
for terrorists and extremist groups is the central location of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. This is the headquarters
of one of the largest religious organizations in the world, which makes it a
keen target for zealots and extremists.
Extreme Racial and Cultural Diversity
The last major contributor to conflict in the state of Utah is a
boom in racial and cultural diversity. Utah has the seventh-largest and
fastest-growing immigrant population in the nation, a measure that the
Department of Homeland Security and the FBI associate with potential
threats.26 Where this would seem to be a positive attribute for many com-munities,
in Utah it often acts as a catalyst to conflict on a broad scale. In
the last couple decades Utah as well as Idaho and Montana have seen a
major influx of refugees from Somalia and Bosnia as well as many seek-ing
political refuge from Middle Eastern countries. This in and of itself is
not a source of conflict, but the tensions that have arisen after 9/11 attacks
have to some degree heightened.
Additionally, a lack of religious and cultural tolerance within the
state has led to an alienation of these minority groups. Several backlashes
from this alienation are as follows: First there has been a rise in unemploy-
22Sanders.
23Price, Martin F. Key Issues For Mountain Areas. NY, New York: United Na-tions
University Press, 2004.
24 Sanders.
25 Ibid.
26 Price.
25
ment among these groups. With less tolerance for these refugees a scarcity
of jobs being provided for them rises and only exacerbates the potential for
these groups to react out of oppression. Second, Utah law enforcement has
lost out on a great resource of intelligence gathering. By alienation Arabs,
Muslims and Middle Eastern Americans the state of Utah has lost out on
many potential sources of quality intelligence in which to implement its
counterterrorist measures. Third, the alienation has led to a loss of behav-ior
profiling and led to racial profiling. This has made it so the minority
groups are afraid to approach the law enforcement groups to report crimi-nal
acts for fear of being profiled and victimized themselves.27
Best Practices
Causes of conflict in the state of Utah are similar to that of other
mountainous regions around the world. Yet in a developed state with a
modernized society of mountain people, conflict also modernizes as well.
This type of modernized conflict requires an equally modernized course of
action and application of best practices to counter the conflict and main-tain
order in a state cohabited with such cultural diversity.
The first step is adequate representation in the Utah house. As dis-cussed
before it is imperative that the Native Americans seek out a more
active role in the Utah political process as well as representation in the
Utah state government. This will insure that the best interests of this in-digenous
people will remain a central focus of the state as it progresses
and continues to modernize and will insure that those underrepresented
do not get sidelined as the world around them continues to advance. This
includes the establishing of a system to monitor both social and economic
conditions in the state of Utah, so proper data can be recorded to address
actual conditions.28 This coupled with the active engagement of the moun-tain
people themselves will help them maintain a more viable institution of
social welfare and public health.
The next course of action for Utah in dealing with conflict ad-dresses
drug trafficking, cartel activity, violent crime and terrorist activity.
Utah’s law enforcement has utilized three key strategies that are central
to sustainable mountain development conflict prevention. These strategies
include making mountain issues an international action, learning from tra-dition
and actively engaging the mountain people themselves.29 The Salt
Lake City Police Department has utilized these key elements in combating
these particular areas of conflict. First, the Chief of Police has collaborated
with governmental agencies such as the FBI and the CIA as well as begin-
27Burbank.
28Starr, 176.
29Starr, 176-178.
26
ning a fully operational Intelligence Center within its own department.30
This collaboration works in intelligence gathering and the prevention of
violent crime and implementation of counterterrorism through a series of
joint task forces. “US intelligence and homeland security agencies and
the Department of Justice measure the potential terrorist threat to Utah
by analyzing data, including the following: Utah is one of 15 states where
US attorneys secured no terrorism convictions from September 11, 2001,
through March 2010, according to the Justice Department.”31 After 9/11
Utah law enforcement has changed its focus on preventative measures and
intelligence gathering rather than a response system to violent and terrorist
acts.
In response to the growing diversity in the culture and ethnic
establishment in the state of Utah and its direct effect on organized and
violent crime, Utah has taken traditional practices and involved the Inter-national
aid of Israel in its implementation of tactics in dealing with this
issue of conflict. Utah has followed Israel’s model of creating neighbor-hood
upon neighborhood of empowered citizens regardless of religious or
ethnic background and made them accountable for their own environment.
Over the last six years, the Salt Lake City Police Department has taken
measures to become more approachable to its citizens and more interac-tive
within the community. The chief of the Salt Lake City Police came to
the realization that Israel has armed an entire nation of its citizens with the
tools necessary to defend themselves through mandatory military service.
While Utah does not participate in this practice it does implore its citizens
to act in a cohesive manner and take charge of their neighborhoods. This
holistic approach builds credibility in the community, with a watchful eye
that exists all the time, not just when there is a problem. There is never
enough police to prevent all the issues of conflict, but there are always
enough community members.32
Conclusion
It is apparent now more than ever that there are common catalysts
among all mountain communities that create similar sources of conflict. It
is also apparent that this conflict is evolving with developed communities
rather than developing communities. Through the study and identification
of these conflicts and the archiving of current data on conflict in mountain
regions around the world, it becomes a more simple process to approach
these causes of conflict and address them in a more pragmatic fashion.
Through the collection of data and the implementation of best practices
30Burbank.
31Price.
32Burbank.
27
the issues of conflict become a more manageable problem to approach;
and with realization that all mountain communities suffer from the same
conflict related issues, more visibility is brought to the importance of ad-dressing
the mountain zones of the world which house over 24 percent of
its population.
28
Mormon’s Political Challenges Settling in Utah
By Melanie Woodbury
Melanie Woodbury will graduate from Utah Valley University April 2014 with a bachelor
of arts in Political Science and a minor in Chinese. She began studying Mandarin Chi-nese
during her freshman year at Provo High School. Following her graduation from high
school, Woodbury traveled to Taiwan and China to study the Chinese language and cul-ture.
After graduating from Utah Valley University, she plans to return to China to get her
master’s degree in the Chinese language and become certified to work for the government
as a Chinese language interpreter.
Introduction
Throughout the existence of communities in mountain regions, the
state legislators governing those mountain communities have been taking
measures to collect the resources the presiding bureaucrats deemed nec-essary.
These mountain communities face difficulties that challenge their
way of life, which include harsh climate and socio-economic conditions.
To address these challenges, bureaucrats implement policies and institu-tions
to help pre-existing mountain communities sustain their culture and
the mountain environment.
The situation regarding sustainable mountain development in
Utah is unique compared to most mountain communities. While Utah has
its fair share of rural mountain communities, their mountain people differ
from those of other mountain environments. In most mountainous areas,
the majority of the people living in those regions are indigenous to the
area. Most of the people currently living in rural mountain communities
in Utah are either not of Native American descent and have migrated from
areas outside of Utah, or they share lineage with pioneers who have settled
in the Utah Valley. Utah legislatures did not take measures to preserve the
culture and lifestyle of the natives after the Mormon pioneers had set-tled
in the Salt Lake Valley. Whatever natives have lived in Utah have
either been re-located to other areas, or exterminated. The same can also
be said of people who have settled in states outside of Utah and the Rocky
Mountain region. The establishment of Utah’s mountainous communities
is a unique situation, because the Salt Lake Valley was established by a
religious group trying to build a community while overcoming challenges
with agriculture, irrigation, handling pressures coming from Native Amer-icans,
as well as persecution and political pressures from the US govern-ment.
The measures that the Mormon settlers have taken in building a city
in the Salt Lake Valley have set the ground work for present populations
in Utah and in other surrounding Rocky Mountain states. The end result of
Brigham Young and the Mormon settler’s efforts in dealing with the agri-
29
culture, facing challenges with the Natives, and resolving issues dealing
with creating policies and institutions to establish Utah communities is
that Utah has developed as a state, as well as the present Rocky Mountain
region.
Early History: Moving to the Valley
When Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers traveled to cre-ate
a settlement in Utah, they didn’t have the advantages that pre-existing
mountain tribes had. Mountain communities in countries such as Cuba,
Morocco, and Nepal pre-date the establishment of the Mormon settlement.
Current mountain tribes have known the challenges of living in their re-spective
areas for thousands of years. Before Brigham Young and the Mor-mon
settlers made their way to the Salt Lake Valley, their knowledge of
the terrain was very limited. Brigham Young had a vision to create a set-tlement
that would be optimal for agricultural development for a healthy
economy.
Before they made their way, Brigham Young had planned on
creating a settlement in Salt Lake two years ahead of time. According to
Richard Jackson’s article, “Mormon Perception and Settlement,” Brigham
Young had researched information about the Salt Lake area from materi-al
that had been published, as well as from interviews with trappers and
explorers who had been to the location he was planning on taking the
pioneers to. Discussions with these fur trappers from the American Fur
Trapping Company included information about the roads that they would
be traveling, any possible encounters with Natives, and the climate of the
Bear River Valley. 1
The church leaders had plans to relocate the settlers south of the
location they were residing in. Some of the main issues that church leaders
were concerned with when planning on settling in the Salt Lake Valley
included, “foreknowledge of the environment of the valley, the difficulties
of crossing the Great Plains, the initial reaction to the environment of the
valley, and the origin of irrigation techniques.”2 When the Mormon settlers
were migrating out of Illinois to flee from persecution, the church leaders
ideally planned to settle in either Oregon or California.
The Oregon region was deemed an appropriate area for the Mor-mon
pioneers to claim as their settlement after reading glowing reports
about the vast amount of promising cultivatable land, as well as having
the capacity to create a lot of opportunity for jobs for a healthy economy.
1 Jackson, Richard H. “Mormon Perception and Settlement.” Annals Of The
Association Of American Geographers, 68, no. 3 (1978): 317-334. Academic
Search Premier, 330.
2Ibid.
30
Regarding this, one report of Oregon stated, “It abounds in the raw mate-rial
of commerce, and it is adapted to almost every variety of productive
labor.”3
Reports about the California territory was twice as enticing to
church leaders and Mormon settlers. There were many glowing accounts
of the optimum climate and the fertility of the soil. Joseph Smith, the
prophet before Brigham Young was appointed as the next church leader,
had other plans regarding where the settlers would move to. Instead of
looking to move to California, Smith proposed to move the settlers to the
Rocky Mountains. After Smith had made an announcement stating that
the Mormon settlers should move from Illinois to the Rocky Mountain
area, several Mormon newspapers started to publish information about the
Rocky Mountains given from accounts from fur trappers, government ex-plorers,
and travelers who were passing through to reach the territories in
Oregon and California. Descriptions of the Utah region of made its way
to Mormon newspapers. Explorer, John C. Fremont’s reports, as well as
accounts given by other explorers who have been to the area, were often
given in a lavish manner, written in a way that made the area sound more
appealing than it really was. It was this kind of propaganda that led the
Mormon settlers to believe in a few false pre-conceptions about the Salt
Lake Valley.
One of the most important aspects of these explorer’s grandi-ose
descriptions of the Utah valleys concerned the quality of agricultural
potential in the region they were planning on traveling to. One explorer
named Lansford Hastings gave Brigham Young and the Mormon settlers
over inflated promises of the fertility of the soil. Hastings would also give
false statements concerning the area north of the 42nd parallel. He claimed
that the area north of the 42nd parallel was not a seemingly good region
for the settlers to travel to. As Brigham Young was leading the settlers,
he would direct the traveling group more and more southward into arid
regions based on Hasting’s claims.
Utah Settlement: Agricultural Changes
The initial impression of the Mormons to the Salt Lake Valley
was favorable. Despite the arid climate they were in, the pioneers were
still capable of irrigating the land. The Saints ran into a few complica-tions
going deeper into the more arid southern regions of Utah, because
Mormon leaders claimed that the areas north of the state were too cold.
Despite Brigham Young’s claims that the pioneers shouldn’t settle north of
Utah and that it would be more ideal for them to create settlements more
and more south of Utah, the settlers had created communities throughout
3Jackson, 320.
31
different areas of Utah.
As the pioneers were creating settlements throughout Utah, they
had experienced a number of roadblocks. Thomas G. Alexander’s [book,
Utah, The Right Place] explains three difficulties that the pioneers had to
overcome: First, they had to establish a base settlement for growing crops
and building homes for themselves and those who followed. Second, they
wanted to find other sites for towns for the thousands who would follow;
and third, they needed to make arrangements to guide the remaining Saints
from Winter Quarters and Kanesville to Utah.
Understanding what needed to be accomplished, early pioneer
parties had begun projects to irrigate land, and cultivate farmland. Accord-ing
to Alexander, “Orson Pratt and his party had begun plowing and plant-ing
in the easily worked sandy loam, and they damned City Creek and
began to irrigate the newly planted fields.”4 Pratt’s party learned how to
irrigate the land from observing different irrigation techniques used in dif-ferent
areas, such as Italy, the Middle East, New Mexico, and California.
Despite the success of these techniques, there were a few areas the settlers
were residing in where their irrigation techniques weren’t as successful.
According to pioneer’s accounts, one settler had stated, “this is shurely a
desert. Several springs broke out above the city suplys for erogation the
land is very full of some kind of mineral [alkali] this obstructs the growth
of much vegetation.”5According to other settler’s accounts, there would
also be frequent flash floods that would destroy the dams and severely
damage, if not completely wipe out the settler’s crops.
Resolving Agricultural Challenges: Irrigation
In order to resolve issues concerning the aridity of the environ-ment,
the settlers utilized methods that originated from irrigation sys-tems
used by the Spanish. The Mormon settlers used these methods and
modified them for the different environments they would try to cultivate.
As they were irrigating the land, they would organize committees that
would establish certain plots of land where they would build dams and
cut trenches to transfer the water in order to irrigate the land. In a more
detailed account of the pioneer’s methods the article, “Mormons Reach the
Great Salt Lake, Utah” published in History Today explains that they were
able to utilize the melted snow from the mountains to the east and north
of the lake, which was successful in developing the land. The irrigation
systems that they used had influenced modern systems of irrigation used to
4Alexander, Thomas G. “Utah, The Right Place.” Utah History to Go. Utah Gov-ernment.
http://historytogo.utah.gov/index.html.
5 Jackson, Richard H. “Mormon Perception And Settlement.” Annals of The
Association Of American Geographers, 1978, 328.
32
cultivate the agriculture in Utah, as well as the agriculture throughout the
rest of the United States, particularly the Rocky Mountain region.6
Utah Settlement: Trouble with the Natives
Before the Mormons had embarked on their journey across the
Great Plains, the first people residing in Utah consisted of many different
Native American tribes that included the Navajos, Utes, Shoshones, etc. In
David Rich Lewis’ article, “Native Americans in Utah,” before the Mor-mon
settlers had arrived to the Salt Lake Valley explorers and trappers,
which included Rivera, Dominguez, and Escalante, Provost, Robidoux,
Ashley, Ogden, Smith, Carson, Bridger, and Goodyear had interacted and
traded with the Native American people in Utah throughout their explora-tions
from 1776 to 1847. According to Lewis, the explorers and trappers
that had intermingled with them had “established economic relations but
exerted little if any political control over the native peoples of Utah.”7
When the Mormon migration began there were more than 20,000
Indians living in Utah proper.8 After the Mormons had settled in 1847, the
area that they chose to settle in the Salt Lake Valley served as a “neutral
or buffer zone” between the Shoshones and Utes. As the Mormons created
settlements down south of the Utah Valley, the settlers and the Natives
began to come across some issues because their settlements were large-ly
located, “in a major trade crossroads and subsistence area for the Ute
people.”9 Brigham Young attempted peace keeping strategies between the
settlers and the Native Americans. Young and church authorities had orga-nized
missionary efforts to convert the Natives, due to the Mormon belief
that the Natives derived from the ‘Lamanite’ line that had descended from
the lineage of Israel as taught in Mormon scripture.
Settlers Efforts to Solve Native Problem: Policy Making
Despite peace keeping efforts the Mormon settlers would run into
more conflicts with Native American tribes as their settlements in the Utah
Valley would spread. As conflicts erupted, the settlers and the Natives ex-perienced
problems that broke out in war, such as the Walker War from
1853 until 1854 and the Black Hawk War from 1863 until 1868. These
wars had ensued due to settlers raiding the Native’s supplies in order to
feed themselves. As a result of these issues, the Natives had suffered from
6“Mormons Reach the Great Salt Lake, Utah.” History Today, 47, no. 7: 31. Aca-demic
Search Premier.
7Lewis, David R. “Native Americans in Utah.” Utah History to Go. Utah Gov-ernment.
http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/american_indians/nativeam-ericansinutah.
html.
8Ibid.
9Ibid.
33
disease and starvation. Many of the Native American groups were either
wiped out or were forced to re-locate to a more secure location. The Indian
Bureau and the Mormon Church had attempted to help the Natives by es-tablishing
and operating reservation farms. These attempts, however, had
proved to be completely useless. The Utes were forced to migrate to the
Uintah Valley Indian Reservation that was established in 1861 by Presi-dent
Abraham Lincoln.
In 1863, the federal government attempted to eradicate all Indi-an
land claims in Utah through treaties with the Shoshone, Bannock, and
Goshute tribes. Through these treaties, the government moved these Na-tive
tribes to Indian reservations. Many of these Native American tribes
initially refused to leave their lands, until the government had provided
them with a reservation.
It wasn’t until 1871 that the federal government had decided to
cease instigating treaties to interfere with the Native’s livelihood. To cease
this practice, as of 1887, Congress had passed the Dawes General Allot-ment
Act, which had broken up the reservations into individual farms for
the Natives who were members of tribes that had their land taken away
by the government. The remaining land was opened to the public for sale.
Following the Dawes General Allotment Act, the government
then made attempts to assimilate the Native American people into soci-ety
as American citizens and yeoman farmers. While these measures had
been successful in detribalizing many Native American tribes, these at-tempts
had largely failed, due to many Native’s refusal to farm. Lewis
states that as an end result of the federal government’s allotment of Indian
lands, “tribal land holdings fell from nearly four million acres to 360,000
acres, and individual sale of Indian allotments further reduced Northern
Ute lands.”10 By 1930, more than 80 percent of all Native tribes had their
land taken away. Reservations were faced with dire problems among the
Native inhabitants, such as “poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment,
and health problems.” Due to these crises, the Natives living on these res-ervations
had become dependent on the US government.
During the Great Depression, many Natives were still highly de-pendent
on government aid. The federal government wanted to enable
these Natives to become more self-reliant. In 1934, the US Congress
passed the Wheeler-Howard Act as a part of the New Deal as a way for
the Native American people to become less reliant on government aid.
According to Lewis, most Utah Indian groups had accepted the Wheel-er-
Howard Act and, “elected tribal governments or business committees,
passed laws, and began planning strategies for reservation economic de-
10Lewis.
34
velopment.”11 The jobs and federal aid was a great asset for the Native
American tribes throughout the Great Depression.
Federal policy toward Native American tribes in Utah was making
great progress, until the 1950s when the government’s procedures toward
these tribes had begun to decline. It started when Utah Senator Arthur V.
Watkins, who was the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Subcommit-tee,
had a law passed that eradicated the federal government’s respon-sibility
toward Native American tribes. As part of this act, Watkins had
pressed for the cessation of Native American groups in Utah. As a result,
these Indian tribes, which include the Shivwits, Kanosh, Koorsharem, In-dian
Peaks Paiutes, the Skull Valley and Washakie Shoshone, had lost the
small amount of property they possessed. After these groups lost all that
they had as a result of Walker’s act, the Northern Ute tribe acknowledged
the annihilation of the mixed-blood Utes in Utah, following a drawn out
internal dispute in 1954.
It wasn’t until the late 1950s to 1960s when the federal govern-ment
began to assist the Native American tribes become more self-de-terminant
by providing them with financial assistance from federal and
state agencies, such as the Public Health Service, the Office of Economic
Employment, etc. The main cause for the government’s change of policy
toward the Indians was due to claims these Native American tribes had
made against the government for violating treaty agreements. The Indi-ans
were so successful in making these claims that the federal govern-ment
had paid several million dollars to compensate the natives. The US
government had compensated the Utes with a massive claim settlement
of $47,700,000 in 1962. The second major cause for the federal govern-ment’s
aggressive approach toward helping the Native Americans become
more self-determinant was due to, “the development of mineral deposits
on reservation lands, utilization of water resources, development of recre-ation
and tourism, and industrial development to provide employment for
tribal members.”12
Resolving Current Issues: Policies
And Institutions
To help resolve a few of the issues that Utah is faced with in cur-rently
dealing with sustainable mountain development, government poli-cies
and institutions have been established in order to meet the needs of
Utah’s mountain communities. The institutions set up to address these
needs can be divided up into institutions that have been established spe-cifically
to serve the purpose of sustainable mountain development, and
11 Lewis.
12 Ibid.
35
institutions that are a pre-existing part of the Utah government.
An example of one of Utah’s institutions that have been estab-lished
specifically for the purpose of carrying out the agenda for sus-tainable
mountain development is the Utah Rural Development Council
(URDC). The URDC was set up as a part of the US Department of Ag-riculture’s
State Rural Development Council program in 1994.The pur-pose
of the council is to, “bring together and join with citizens, commu-nity-
based organizations, representatives of the private, public and higher
education sectors, Native Americans, and federal, state and local govern-ment
officials from across Utah to collectively address the economic and
health needs of rural Utah communities and residents.”13 This program
places special emphasis on the involvement of everyone in the Utah com-munity,
citizen and dignitary alike, in an effort to develop the rural areas of
Utah to meet the needs of these rural mountain communities.
Another example of an institution established specifically for sus-tainable
mountain development is the Southern Utah University’s SUU/
Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Collaborating Council. This council was initi-ated
to increase the involvement of the community in sustainable develop-ment
of rural areas, economic development, as well as developing educa-tion
in communities by recruiting students and providing opportunities for
students to get involved in internships.
In order to help the development of tourism and national parks
in Utah through university initiatives, the Outdoor Recreation in Parks &
Tourism Program (ORPT) was initiated. The ORPT works closely with the
Office of Regional Services to educate university students to become qual-ified
workers for a career in outdoor recreation, which includes employ-ment
at local, state and national agencies, protected natural areas, outdoor
leadership and service programs, commercial recreation enterprises, and
wilderness adventure/therapy organizations. Implementing this program
involves arranging guest lectures in ORPT classes, organizing programs
for the Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative, fulfilling the agenda for
the Outdoor Initiative Mountain Ranch endeavors, and participation in up-dating
the ORPT curriculum.
To address issues with climate change in Utah and the Rocky
Mountain region, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) was created. Their
mission is to collaborate with the private sector, civil society, and the fed-eral
government in an effort to create efficient and renewable green ener-gy.
In carrying out these actions, the eight guiding principles that they use
to execute their goals involve advanced resource productivity, whole-sys-
13“Utah Rural Mountain Summit: Current Programs and Activities.” Southern
Utah University. http://www.suu.edu/ad/regional/projects.html.
36
tems design, positive action, market-oriented solutions, end-use/least-cost
approach, biological insight, corporate transformation, and the pursuit of
interconnection. These guiding principles integrated in action help the
RMI fulfill their agenda of “natural capitalism.”14
As part of the state government, Utah has institutions organized
for the purpose of preserving the natural wildlife. A few examples of agen-cies
include the Utah Department of Agriculture, the Utah Department of
Natural Resources, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, the
Utah State Soil Conservation Commission, the US Department of Agri-culture
Natural Resources Conservation Service, etc. All of these agencies
create laws and regulations regarding environmental matters in Utah.15
To help preserve the natural wildlife in Utah, specific policies are
implemented to fit this agenda. For example, Utah Code Title 23 Chapter
14 Section 18 was passed under the Division of Wildlife Resources and
Wildlife Board, which discerns the establishment of seasons, locations,
limits, and regulations by the Wildlife Board. This law is executed to pro-tect
the natural wildlife in Utah by setting regulations on what areas are
open for fishing or hunting, creating refuges and preserves, regulate the
means in which the wildlife will be protected, establish measures and reg-ulations
for the safety of the wildlife and hunters in certain areas, prescribe
hunting permits, etc.16
In Utah Code–Title 03, the Uniform Agricultural Cooperative
Association Act was created to “improve the economic position of agri-culture,
encourage the organization of producers of agricultural products
into effective associations under the control of such producers, and to that
end this act shall be liberally construed.”17 The implementation of this
act entails the improvement of crops, soil conservation and rehabilitation,
enabling member with the supplies needed to utilize for the purposes of
fulfilling this act, generating and distributing electrical energy to mem-bers,
establishing businesses and educational services to members, and
providing aid to finance activities that would fulfill the agenda of the Uni-form
Agricultural Cooperative Association Act.
14“About RMI.” Rocky Mountain Institute. http://www.rmi.org/About%20RMI
15 “Appendix A-Agencies.” NASDA.
16 “Wildlife Resources Code of Utah.” NASDA. “Wildlife Resources Code
of Utah.” NASDA. http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE23/htm/23_14_001800.
htm.”Appendix A-Agencies.” NASDA. http://www.nasda.org/nasda/nasda/foun-dation/
state/ut/ut-adxa.pdf.
17“Uniform Agricultural Cooperative Association Act: General Provisions Relat-ing
to Agricultural Cooperative Associations.” NASDA.
37
Conclusion
The settlement of the Mormon pioneers had greatly influenced the
creation of institutions and policies for sustainable development in Utah
and the Rocky Mountain region. While there are many establishments and
laws that address the needs of Utah’s natural ecosystem, tourism, and rural
areas, there are little to no programs established specifically for the pres-ervation
of the culture of Utah’s native people. Throughout Utah’s history,
the culture of the Native American tribes was exterminated as a result of
the settler’s attempts to assimilate them into American society. Therefore,
it is highly recommended for Utah to create institutions and laws specifi-cally
for the revival and cultivation of the native people who are currently
living in mountain communities.
38
Consequences of Environmental Service
Agreements in Wasatch County
By Jordan Giles
Jordan Giles is a recent graduate from Utah Valley University who majored in Political
Science with an emphasis in International Relations. He has been involved with the Utah
International Mountain Forum and has represented them at a conference in Aspen, Col-orado
and will also be present at the 4th Annual meeting of the Mountain Partnership in
Erzurum, Turkey. Giles is the Social Media Manager for The Cholangiocarcinoma Foun-dation,
a large cancer foundation, and is also politically active in his community. He will
be pursuing a graduate program focused on international relations.
Wasatch County is one of the
most pristine and beautiful rural
counties, not only in Utah, but
also in the entire western United
States. Wasatch County is locat-ed
directly east of both Salt Lake
and Utah Counties. Park City,
which is known for hosting the
Sundance Film Festival, the larg-est
independent film festival in
the United States, is located on
the border and both Wasatch and
Summit Counties share the city
limits.1 Other cities of note within Wasatch County are Heber, Midway,
and Wallsburg as well as a few other small cities2. Wasatch County be-cause
of its natural beauty and mountain location was honored with host-ing
the 2002 Olympic venue, Soldier Hollow, where many Olympic events
were held including the Long Jump. This brought the world to Wasatch
County. Another main attraction of Wasatch County is Strawberry Reser-voir,
which is Utah’s most recognized sport fishery.3The before mentioned
Wasatch County attractions; the 2002 Olympic venue ‘Soldier Hollow’,
and the nationally recognized sport fishery ‘Strawberry Reservoir’, were
able to receive the national recognition in part because of prior environ-
1Balls, Jamie. “History of Park City.” Utah History to Go. Utah Government.
http://historytogo.utah.gov.
2Wasatch County Website http://www.co.wasatch.ut.us/.
3Strawberry Reservoir Information www.utah.com.
MAP from www.utahbirds.org
39
mental service agreements that were put into place many years previous.
This article will look into the economic consequences such environmental
service agreements have had in the development of both Soldier Hollow
and Strawberry Reservoir.
Before diving into the details of environmental service agree-ments,
it is important to learn more about Wasatch County and the im-portant
features and practices it had brought to the larger Utah economy.
Wasatch County ranks as Utah’s thirteenth most populated county hav-ing
a population of just over 23,000 people according the 2010 census.4
Wasatch County is one of Utah’s northern rural counties and boarders both
Salt Lake and Utah Counties. In its early history, Wasatch County was
nicknamed Utah’s Switzerland because of both its unique geographic fea-tures,
including Mount Timpanogos in the west, its climate, and the large
number of Swiss emigrates that settled in Heber Valley.5 In the Beehive
History 14 text, it describes the early history of Wasatch County as the
following:
The first settlers came into Wasatch County from Utah
Valley in the spring of 1859 and located a short dis-tance
north of present Heber City. That same year Mid-way
and Charleston were also settled. In 1862 the ter-ritorial
legislature created Wasatch County, which then
included all of the Uinta Basin. Wasatch in Ute means
“mountain pass” or “low pass over high range”. He-ber
City, named for Mormon Apostle Heber C. Kim-ball,
was selected as the county seat. The last boundary
change occurred in 1914 when Duchesne County was
created out of the eastern half of Wasatch County. The
county produces hay, dairy products, sheep, and cattle.6
Throughout the years the economy of Wasatch County moved
from an agriculturally based, to a mining based, to now a tourism and
serviced based economy. While there are still small agricultural and min-ing-
base operations, tourism and the service industry are the two main
revenue makers for the county. Two popular Wasatch County tourist des-tinations
that will be discussed further are first the 2002 Winter Olympic
venue Soldier Hollow, and the popular sport fishery Strawberry Reservoir.
However one reason these two attractions are being focused on are be-cause
of the environmental service agreements (ESA) that have helped
them maintain their prominent status, not only in Wasatch County, but also
4Utah Census Information onlineutah.com.
5 Utah.gov. Wasatch County History http://pioneer.utah.
6 Beehive History 14: Utah Counties. 1988. Utah State Historical Society.
40
in Utah and throughout the other western states.
Environmental service agreements are agreements between two
cities, usually an upstream and a downstream community (may also in-clude
agreements between cities and counties, cities, counties and a Fed-eral
or State Agency etc) in order to both protect the shared environment
as well as provide and share the economic benefits.7 In Key Issues for
Mountain Areas, Price, Jansky and Latsenia give several reasons why en-vironmental
service agreements are needed.
The first reason given for why environmental service agreements
are needed is because of the downstream effects of mismanagement.8 All
over the world evidence of mismanagement is everywhere, especially in
developing countries. This evidence can be in the form of shallow aquifers
and wells, siltation of hydroelectric facilities and reservoirs because of
hillside erosion, less water retention in the dry season, and more violent
floods in the rainy season. Another major evidence of upstream misman-agement
is water purity. The next reason which is given, is the plight of
mountain dwellers, meaning mountain populations immigrating to other
areas. Mountain peoples are connected to their land, when their land is
good, the people will stay, when the land is poor, the people leave. Moun-tain
areas tend to be poorer, and because of that, often people do not plan
ahead and try to get as much as possible done, in a little time possible.
When this happens, usually the environment is the party that suffers. Also
many populations have outgrown their communities. Overpopulation is
a major problem in many mountain regions.9 The third reason given is
that mountain environments are generally more fragile than other environ-ments.
Mountain regions experience a high differential in temperatures,
which limits the varieties of crops that may be farmed. Mountain soil is
usually thin and erodes easily. In an article entitled, “Land-Use Planning
for Sustainable Highland Farming in the Western Himalayas”, S.K. Garbru
and Pradeep Kumar explain the following about farming in the highlands:
High land farming is a challenge not only to the farm-ers,
but also for the policy planners as well as the re-search
faculty. For reasons of accessibility, the high-land
farmers are isolated from the rest of the world in
terms of meeting the needs of human as well as live-stock
population from the land they own, and the sur-rounding
wastelands, forest lands, grazing lands etc.,
7Price, Martin. Key Issues for Mountain Areas. New York, NY: United Nations
University,2004, 64.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., 65.
41
commonly termed as support lands.10
The fourth and final reason suggested by Price, Jansky, and
Latsenia is the need for payments for environmental services (PES). Mon-etary
compensation, especially in the developing world is essential in or-der
for environmental service agreements to be successful. In many parts
of the developing world, many people go from crisis to crisis with little
thought of future planning. With monetary or other compensation mech-anisms,
additional motivation is provided for cities and organizations to
enter into agreements that will ultimately benefit both, as well as preserve
the environment.
One case study provided by Price, Jansky, and Latsenia involved
a watershed desalination project in Australia. The problem was that over
time, the Murray-Darling watershed and the Macquarie River sub-water-shed
were displaying large amounts of salts and other minerals because of
deforestation upstream. An Australian government agency called the State
Forests of New South Wales (SF) decided to implement a pilot program
entitled, “The Pilot Salinity Control Trade Agreement with Macquarie
River Food and Fibre (MRFF).” This was a market based pilot program.
Essentially, the irrigators, which were using the heavy mineral content
water, agreed to pay US $42 per hectare to SF for them to reforest up-stream
regions for ten years. “SF uses the revenues of this trading scheme
to replant more trees on public and private lands. Private land owners
receive an annuity, by the forestry rights remain with SF.”11 Thus far this
agreement has had few problems and has been used as a template for fu-ture
agreements in Australia.
Returning to our initial discussion regarding Wasatch County,
two local projects, which implemented successful environmental service
agreements, will now be discussed. First, the agreements and compensa-tions
mechanisms surrounding Utah’s most popular sport fishery, Straw-berry
Reservoir, and second, the agreements and compensations mecha-nism
for one of the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games largest and
busiest venue, Soldier Hollow.
Strawberry Reservoir is a manmade reservoir located sixty-five
miles east of the Wasatch Front. The Bureau of Reclamation initially con-structed
the Strawberry Valley Project in 1922 with the main focus on an
8,400-acre reservoir.12 In 1973, it was decided to enlarge the reservoir to
10Ghabru, S.K., and Pradeep Kumar. “Land-Use Planning For Sustainable High-land
Farming in Western Himalayas.” Archives of Agronomy & Soil Science,
48, no. 4 ( 2002): 385-394. Academic Search Premier.
11Price, 67.
12Strawberry Reservoir.
42
17,164 acres. According to the official history found on the Wildlife.Utah.
Gov site:
Strawberry Reservoir has been managed for more than
sixty years for the production of rainbow and cutthroat
trout. Yellowstone cutthroat were introduced into the
reservoir sometime during the mid to late 1930s, and
this species subsequently became hybridized with
rainbow trout. This introduced cutthroat later become
known as the Strawberry cutthroat trout, and has been
widely used in the statewide fisheries management
program.13
In the 1950s the populations of Utah chub, Utah sucker, carp and
yellow perch had exploded and nearly destroyed the trout populations. In
October 1961, the decision was made to chemically treat the reservoir,
with a chemical called rotenone, and essentially kill all fish in order to
start over and carefully control the species of fish in the lake.14 This effort
proved successful. This idea of carful control lead to one of the first envi-ronmental
service agreements in the Wasatch County area and would lead
the way for many others.
In 1973 it was discovered that the Utah chub and sucker had sub-sequently
reappeared and populations rapidly expanded throughout the
80s. In 1986, gill netting confirmed that over 90 percent of the biomass
in the reservoir was non-game fish. In the 1990s it was decided again to
chemically treat the reservoir. It was the largest chemical treatment ever
attempted and was 99 percent effective. After the treatment Strawberry
was stocked with Bear Lake cutthroat trout, sterilized rainbow trout, and
kokanee salmon. Ever since this most recent chemical treatment Strawber-ry
Reservoir has remained Utah’s top sport fishery. In 2010 it is estimated
that Strawberry Reservoir brought in $20 million to the state, 14 percent
of total state hours spent fishing were at Strawberry, and anglers spent ap-proximately
1.5 million hours on its waters.15 Because of the environmen-tal
service agreements as well as the payments for services acted into by
both the Bureau of Reclamation as well as partnerships between Wasatch
Counties and the communities located within, Strawberry Reservoir has
become and been able to maintain its status as a major tourist destination,
sport fishery, and economic driver for the county.
The next major attraction and economic driver for Wasatch Coun-
13Background and History wildlife.utah.gov.
14 http://harvester.lib.utah.edu/wwdl/index.php/record/view/5441
15 Serdar, David. Uinta National Forest. What’s at Risk. www.sportsmen4re-sponsibleenergy.
org
43
ty, which we will discuss, is the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter
Games venue, Soldier Hollow.
In a conference call late Wednesday with Gov. Mike
Leavitt’s office and representatives of a rival bid from
Sherwood Hills, a private resort at the edge of the
Cache Valley, Edwards said he was unsure which site
the state’s political muscle would choose to back. It
wasn’t until Thursday morning that the outcome be-came
evident. “When they flashed the slides up com-paring
the sites during that meeting (of the Salt Lake
Organizing Committee), it was just too obvious,” said
Robyn Pearson, the local Chamber of Commerce rep-resentative
in attendance. In the end, SLOC chose Sol-dier
Hollow despite the better-financed bid from Sher-wood
Hills and a more politically popular spot above
Provo.16
The City of Midway was chosen for its prime location and the
right amounts of average snow and the right proximity to Salt Lake City
and other main Olympic venues. Soldier Hollow is located close to Heber
City, which is located fifty-three miles south of Park City. Many envi-ronmental
service agreements were implemented for this project. Soldier
Hollow was developed in such a way that, “… Soldier Hollow is con-sidered
to be one of the most environmentally friendly of the Salt Lake
Olympics venues - largely due to the fact that the area was not in a pristine
state before it was developed for use in the Olympics.”17 These agreements
came in the form of planting new trees and groundcover to avoid erosion
because of new development, protection and management of many of the
streams in the Jordan watershed area, as well as a limit to the kinds of bus-ses,
which would be allowed to transport guests to and, from the venue.
Also in addition to busses, as special station for the Heber Creepers, (his-toric
steam trains) were constructed to provide additional transportation.18
A great deal of time and funds were spent insuring that there would not
be any environmental scars in the Soldier Hollow and Snow Basin areas
because of the Olympics.
16Cates, Karl. “Midway Celebrates an Olympic Decision.” Deseret News, Oct
10, 1997. www.deseretnews.com/article/588004/Midway-celebrates-an-Olym-pic-
decision.html.
17Lazaroff, Cat. “Winter Olympics not a Green Triumph.” . Ens-Newswire.
www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2002/2002-02-11-06.html.
18Twyman, Gib. “Full Steam Ahead for Creeper 02’” Deseret News.
April 1 2012. www.deseretnews.com/article/798520/Full-steam-ahead-for-
Creeper-in-02.html
44
After the initial sustainable construction and environmental con-servation
practices were implemented, the Soldier Hollow Olympic ven-ue
was complete. Soldier Hollow was the busiest venue during the 2002
Olympic Winter Games. Twenty-three events were hosted at the venue
including the biathlon, cross-country skiing, and the Nordic combined.19
Since the 2002 Olympics, Soldier Hollow remained a popular
tourist destination. In the winter there is tubing and cross-country skiing,
in the summer there are hiking and biking trails. Soldier Hollow has con-tinued
to develop land around the venue and it now hosts a 36-hole golf
course and a variety of other attractions. The implementation of environ-mental
service agreements at the beginning of the development of Soldier
Hollow has paved the way for it to remain one of Wasatch Counties prime
tourist destination bringing millions into the Utah economy.
In conclusion, it can be seen that environmental service agree-ments
have been very beneficial both to the people and to the economy
Wasatch County. They have helped drive the economy of Wasatch County
by providing an environmentally friendly, yet economically stimulating at-traction
that many Utahans enjoy. Soldier Hollow especially, has become a
benchmark for other Winter Olympic venues to be measured by because of
its small environmental footprint and the post-Olympic revenue which has
been brought in. The successful treatment and retreatment of Strawberry
Reservoir has shown that when agencies on a local and state level work to-gether,
through environmental service agreements and payments for envi-ronmental
services, substantial progress can be made. It will be important
to remember these successes as new projects come into development so as
to both protect our environment as well as provide an economic stimulus
to communities all throughout mountain regions.
Additional Resources:
Johnson, Jim. Environmental Assessment of Plans to Restore the Straw-berry
Valley Rishery. 1st. 87-14. Salt Lake City: Utah Division of
Wildlife Resources, 1969. 27-89.
Scheberle, Denise. Federalism and Environmental Policy: Trust and the
Politics of Implementation. 1st. Washington DC: Georgetown
University Press, 1997. 159-78.
Smith , Zachary. The Environmental Policy Paradox. 3rd ed. Upper Sad-dle
River: Prentice Hall, 2000. 284.
19Soldier Hollow Information Utah.com/olympics/.
45
Sustainable Mountain Development:
State Rights vs. Federal Rights
By Thomas Hone
Currently, Thomas Hone is working on a master’s degree in International Affairs and
Global Enterprise at the University of Utah while trying to master Arabic. He graduated
from Utah Valley University in 2012 with a degree in Political Science with an emphasis in
International Affairs and minors in History and American Indian Studies. Hone has always
had an interest in understanding why nations and people make the choices they do and
how that might affect their relationship with others, especially when it comes to the Middle
East. After finishing his degree he hopes to live internationally, working with others, to
shape policy that will not only further strengthen US security interests but strengthen ties
between the people of the Middle East and the United States.
Over thirty million acres in the state of Utah are controlled by
the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).1 This comes to approximately
seventy percent of the land in Utah. In much of this land, there have
been discoveries of valuable resources such as natural gas and oil, both of
which are growing in value and importance as the nation as a whole faces
potential energy crises. In both the past and present, it has been left up to
the BLM and not the state to decide which areas can be accessed for the
purpose of mining/drilling and who is able to do it. The question that is
raised is this the best policy? Should a federal organization decide what
is best for a state, especially in a state where the majority of its land and
energy potential are controlled not by them? The answer to this is simple,
no. The decision in how land should be used and protected should be done
at both a local level and a federal level. This will be shown by examining
the history of the BLM; the role that it plays in land and energy policy;
how this policy has affected Utah; the issues surrounding energy policy
in Utah; what control of its land could mean for the state both policy and
revenue wise; and how this could be accomplished.
History of the Bureau of Land Management
The origins of the Bureau of Land Management can be traced to
the beginnings of the United States and the passage of the Northwest Or-dinance
and the Land Ordinance of 1785. The purpose of these ordinances
were to ensure that the Federal Government would be the one directing
and controlling how the west was to be settled. This began the precedence
of the Federal Government being able to control how land was to be used
and what it was to be used for. After these early ordinances were passed,
and the American people began to move further west, a number of other
1 “Energy, Environment and Federal Lands,” Welcome to Congressman Jason
Chaffetz. http://chaffetz.house.gov/issue/energy-environment-federal-lands.
46
ordinances followed in order to deal with any new problems that began
to arise from the movement. This pattern would continue to until the late
1800s when the policy began to shift. It soon became realized that the land
that held valuable resources and is of such wonder and beauty that they
would need to be protected. Thus, instead of using land to promote settle-ment
and private ownership the Federal Government shifted its policy to
encourage public ownership. An example of this shift in policy was the
creation of Yellowstone National Forest which was then followed by the
creation of Yellowstone National Park.2
The area that would become known as Yellowstone National Park
was largely unexplored. It had been bypassed by Lewis and Clark and it
was not until further exploration of the West by the military and mountain
men that its wonders and beauty began to be known. Then an expedition
led by FV Hayden compiled large amounts of date, paintings, and photo-graphs.
These were then taken back to Washington D.C. and used to con-vince
the US Congress and President Grant that if something was not done
the area would face the same fate as that of Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls,
another ecological wonder, had been turned into private economic side-show
in which only the upper class was able to enjoy. In addition to this
private ownership of the area much of the natural beauty was beginning to
be lost due to economic advancement.3 FV Hayden did not want the area
now known as Yellowstone to follow a similar fate. He envisioned an
area that would be free of industrialization and free for all to enjoy and in
March of 1872, the US congress and the President Grant signed it into law.
Thus began the policy of setting aside land for the use of the public and the
preservation of natural beauty. After this change in policy war time issues
caused a shift back to original issues and a less of focus on preservation.4
However, in 1972, the idea of preservation and environmentalism arose
once more to send the focus back to the creation of protected areas. This
2United States, Bureau of Land Mangement, National Science & Technology
Center, The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, by Terry D’Er-chia,
Peter Doran, and Lee Barkow (Colorado: BLM), pg. #.http://rs6.loc.gov/
cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl.
3 “Falling for Niagara.” The New York State Preservationist 6, no. 1 (Fall 2002):
14-15.
An Act For the control and regulation of the waters of Niagara River, for the
preservation of Niagara Falls, and for other purposes, 34 626 §§ 3621-628
(1906).
4Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive
Conservation Movement, 1890-1920. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1999.
47
attitude has, since that period played a major role in US politics.5
This change in policy began to cause more issues to arise. Such
as what part of the Federal Government would monitor such land and how
was it to be founded. In addition to this on many of these lands there was
discovered valuable resources such as coal, oil, and other precious metals
that would benefit both the local and national economy and the questions
arose on whether or not these resources could be acquired and if so by
who? In the West especially, oil was being discovered and the land was
being claimed so quickly by others that it was feared that in a matter of
months there would be no open land. Thus, this act was passed and the
power to determine who would have access to the minerals on land was
given to the Federal Government. In addition to this, as settlement[s] of
the West began to increase it was seen that land would be needed for graz-ing
and just as with the oil, it was seen that someone would need to ensure
that not all the land was lost to the ranchers.6 The issue with these acts is
that it gave various departments within the Federal Government overlap-ping
control and it was seen that a central department would be needed to
manage the everyday task.
In 1946 these various powers and responsibilities were combined
into one single entity, known as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The early years of this organization were chaotic. The department itself
found that there many laws on the book that contradicted one each other
and that the department itself had no power to change or enact any new
policy of its own. This would still have to come from other departments.
This meant that the Bureau of Land Management was unable to fully en-force
any policy or make any much needed changes. It would not be until
1976 when Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act
of 1976. In this act Congress noted the value of certain public lands and
that more would need to be done to manage them correctly. Thus, power
was given to the Bureau of Land Management to address topics such as
land planning, acquisition, administration of federal land and range man-agement.
Thus, nearly two hundred years after the idea of managing and
preserving land was thought up, a department with the ability and power
to do so now existed.7
5Merrill, Marlene D. Yellowstone and the Great West: Journals, Letters, and
Images from the 1871... Lincoln: Univ Of Nebraska Press, 2003.
6Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 30 U.S.C. § 181 et seq.
7United States, Bureau of Land Mangement, National Science & Technology
Center, The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, by Terry D’Er-chia,
Peter Doran, and Lee Barkow (Colorado: BLM), pg. #. http://rs6.loc.gov/
cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl.
48
Role of the Bureau of Land Management
Simply put the role of the Bureau of Land Management is to sus-tain
the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for enjoy-ment
of present and future generations and ensure that the United States
has access to natural resources in order to sustain itself. These two goals
seem to be at odds with each other. On the one hand it is up to the Bureau
of Land Management to restrict access to certain areas due to environmen-tal
sensitivity, promote new areas to come under federal protection and
to manage said areas while at the same time allowing areas to mined and
drilled for natural resources.
The Bureau of Land Management has under its jurisdiction two
hundred and sixty-one million acres of land. This includes nearly sixty
national parks and other types of protective land. Most of this land is to
be protected from industrialization, mining, and drilling due to the wildlife
and historic sites it may contain and for preserving open space. As stated,
it is the Bureau of Land Management’s goal to preserve public lands for
the enjoyment of all. This includes taking provisions to protect the various
plant and animal species that exist on the land. To achieve this goal the
Bureau of Land Management has set aside land not to be used for develop-ment,
of which includes roughly ninety million acres for big game species,
host two hundred and twenty-eight environmentally sensitive plant and
animal species and seeks to irradiate nonnative species. Examples of this
are found by the re-introduction of wolves to areas such as Yellowstone
and the desire to create a preserve in the Midwest for creatures such as
the buffalo. The purpose of this is to ensure that these native species will
be able to not only survive but also continue to grow so that they can be
enjoyed by all for years to come. In addition to the preserving of land
and creature, it is also the Bureau of Land Management’s responsibility
to preserve water sources. This is especially important out West where
water can be scarce. Thus, they need to ensure that there is water that
can be used for agriculture, ranching, and drinking. In order to do this
they have in their control one hundred and forty-four thousand miles of
riparian-lined streams and thirteen million acres of wetlands. In addition,
they have overseen the creation of a number of dams in order to ensure
that water can be stored for in times of drought. Lastly, various historical
sites also fall under their control. As settlement of the West continued, it
was realized that steps would need to be taken to preserve the history of
the United States in order to allow future generations to enjoy them. These
include sites such as ancient Native American ruins, early settlements, and
other sites that are deemed to have historical and culture value.8
8 United States, Bureau of Land Management.
49
On the other side is the Bureau of Land Management’s goal to
ensure that the United States will have access to certain strategic natural
resources. This goal is smaller in wording but just as large and great re-sponsibility
as the culture and environmental side. This would include
oil, coal, and natural gas, and the lands in the western half if the United
States held many of these resources. In addition, they were being taken
for the use in the private sector and it became a worry within the federal
government that in time of hardship or war they may need to be able to
exert more control of the use of these resources. Thus, under the idea of
national security the federal government directed that a certain number of
lands be held and protected for just such times.9
These missions appear to be at odds with each other. On the one
hand, it is the Bureau of Land Management’s responsibility to ensure that
environmental and historical sensitive sites are protected from develop-ment
and are able to be enjoyed by all, while at the same time allowing
economic development to better the United States economy. Such a com-plex
goals become even more complicated when it must not only take into
account the effect that such polices may have at the federal level but the
state level as well.
The Issues
The main issue lies in the idea of who actually has the power. To
understand the issues fully it first needs to be understood where it began.
At the United States formation there was one thing on every one’s mind,
where should the power lie? It was seen after the revolutionary war that
a strong central government would be needed if peace between the colo-nies
was to last. Thus, leaders of the colonies met to determine just how
this government would work. There were two sides to this issue. On the
one side colonies such as New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania sought
an agreement where the majority of the power would lie within the larger
colonies while others such as Delaware, Rhode Island and other small
colonies wanted to make sure that they had a voice in the government and
would not be overshadowed. After days of deliberation, they would come
up with a compromise that would not only satisfy both the large and small
colonies but create a government that would allow for power to exist at a
state and federal level. The problem that has arisen with this compromise
is that there have been times in which these two powers have been at odds
with one each other. This is especially seen in the battle over land control
in Utah.
As noted before in the history and roles of Bureau of Land Man-agement
they have been commissioned by the Federal Government to con-
9 United States, Bureau of Land Management.
50
trol some land for various purposes. In the State of Utah, approximately
67 percent of the land is held by the Federal Government. This includes
five national parks, seven national monuments, two national recreational
areas, one national historic site six national forest, and other land deemed
either environmentally sensitive or strategic for its’ resources. The reason
behind why so much land is in the control of the Federal Government can
be found within the theories of the Key Issues for Mountain Areas. With-in
the book it speaks of a number of issues that face mountainous areas,
namely the best approach to maintain sustainability in mountainous areas
and at what level of government should have the control. In Chapter 7, it
creates categories that mountainous areas can fall. The one pertaining to
the issues in Utah is high environmental /low linkage area. This means
that a majority of land in Utah is deemed to be environmentally sensitive
and since for the most part these areas are not populated ideas where need-ed
to preserve them. The one that is a proven technique to handle this is
the creation of national/state parks or other types of protected land. This
technique allows environmentally sensitive land to be protected and to
control growth of certain areas to be able to sustain the area.10 This is not
the issue. The majority of those within the state of Utah believe that land
should be protected; the issue then lies in who decides what gets the label
of a national park/monument and what can be developed.
Federal Government Perspective
The main goal of the Federal Government is in any capacity is to
create a streamlined and universal process that affects everyone equally.
Thus, its goal is to ensure environmentally sensitive land and resources are
held to the same level of protection from state to state. There are a number
of reasons behind this. The first being that politics vary from state to state,
this means that each state will place various level of importance on land
within their state. Such as where one state may seek to preserve an area
of land due to its historic/environmental value while another may look at
the same piece of land and believe that it is in its best interest to obtain
the resources that or held there. This could lead to a loss of environmen-tally
sensitive land or the loss of value resources.11 The second involves
business. Just as business, technology, and resources vary from country
to country it also varies from state to state within the United States. States
that are rich in resources such as oil, coal or natural gas seek to improve
revenue by being able to access and sell the land. In addition as seen just
10Price, Martin F., Libor Jansky, and Andrei A. Iastenia. “7.” Key Issues for
Mountain Areas. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2004.
11VanAsselt, Wendy, and Layke Christian. “Protecting the Best of the West.”
Issues in Science & Technology, 3:4

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YOUTH AND THE
MOUNTAINS
Volume I
2013
YOUTH AND THE
MOUNTAINS
StudSetnutd Eenssta Eysss oanys S ouns tSauinsatabilnea Mbloeu Mntoauin tDaienv eDleovpemloepnmt ent
Editor-in-Chief:
Dr. David R. Connelly
History & Political Science Chair
Assistant Editor/Administrative Support:
Kimberly Williamson
Utah Valley University Faculty:
Dr. Keith Snedegar, Professor of History
Dr. Baktybek Abdrisaev, Lecturer in Political Science
Dr. Michael Minch, Associate Professor of Philosophy and
director of Peace and Justice Studies
Sara Ulloa, Assistant Professor of Languages
Community Support:
Robin Bucaria, teacher from Copper Hills High School in West
Jordan, Utah
Utah Valley University Students:
Jordan Giles
Jesler Molina
Mark Petersen
Utah Valley University
800 University Parkway
Mailstop 185
Orem, Utah 84058
801-863-8487
Editorial Board
YOUTH AND THE
MOUNTAINS
The following essays are on a variety of themes that relate to sustain-able
mountain development, both at home in Utah and around the
world. They cover such varied topics as conflict in mountainous re-gions,
alternative energy production, political arrangements, and the
importance of women in mountainous communities. This volume in-cludes
essays that were written by students at Utah Valley University
and also includes essays written by local high school students who
competed in the Utah High School Essay contest, held in 2011, 2012
and 2013.
Student Essays on Sustainable Mountain Development
Table of Contents
Introduction: Dr. David Connelly………………...………………..1
Introductory Essay: “Sustainability of Prophetic Politics: Defini-tion,
Differentiae, and Deterrents to Sustainability in Societies”
Author: Luis Alfonso Miranda Perez…………………...…………5
SECTION I:
MOUNTAIN ISSUES IN UTAH AND IN THE UNITED
STATES
“Conflict in the State of Utah: A Survey of Conflict Among the
Indigenous Paiutes and Modern Threats to State Security”
Author: John McClure……………………..……………………..17
“Mormon’s Political Challenges Settling in Utah”
Author: Jordan Giles…………………..…………………………29
“Consequences of Environmental Service Agreements in Wasatch
County”
Author: Jordan Giles......................................................................39
“Sustainable Mountain Development: State Rights vs. Federal
Rights”
Author: Thomas Hone……………………………………………46
“American Attitudes towards the Global Warming Consensus”
Author: Gregory Haddock………………………………………..57
SECTION II:
INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAIN ISSUES
“Mountain Conflicts: The Ferghana Valley”
Author: Alexis Sagen…………………………………………..…66
“An Andean Perspective”
Author: Will Welch……………………………………………….84
“Women of the Andes: How Secular Education Enhances Women’s
Health and Society in General”
Author: Jared Martin……………..………………………………90
SECTION III:
UTAH HIGH SCHOOL ESSAY WINNERS
2013 Winner:
Maranda Fisher
“Running Out of Water”………...………………………………103
2013 Second Place Winner:
Quinn Everett
“The Case against Water Contamination in Utah: The Hazardous
Factors that Led to Pollution and the Poor Policies that Tolerate it”
…………………………………………...........................…...…109
2013 Third Place Winner:
Maison Evensen
“Water Rights and Preservation”………………………………..116
2012 Winner:
Justin Ngo
“Wind Energy for Mountainous Regions”………………...……122
2012 Second Place Winner:
Jacob Adler
“Sustainable Energy Sources and Benefits of Thorium in Modern
Society”……………………………..............………………….126
2012 Third Place Winner:
Amber Kelpacz
“Micro-Hydro Power”……………………………...…………...132
.
2011 Winner:
Shelby Jorgensen
“Women’s Education in Mountainous Regions”………………..137
2011 Second Place Winner:
Katie Pontsler
“Women of the Mountains: Past and Present: What Can We Learn
From These Brave Souls?”……………......…………………….142
2011 Third Place Winner:
Ivan Delgadillo
“The Benefits of Mountainous Communities Can Achieve Through
Women and Education”…………………………………………146
1
Introduction
Whaia te iti kahuranga ki te tuahu koe me he maunga teitei.
Aim for the highest cloud so that if you miss it, you will hit
a lofty mountain. – Maori Proverb
Utah Valley University, its faculty and students have set
high and lofty goals in the area of sustainable mountain develop-ment.
Utah Valley University joined the United Nations-related
Mountain Partnership in 2006 in an effort to reach out to other
mountain communities; from the mountain community that Utah
Valley University calls home to the mountain communities around
the world in an effort to strengthen co-operation and understand-ing
of the challenges and issues that are unique to mountain living.
Since 2006 Utah Valley University has hosted three ‘Women of the
Mountains’ conferences; two in Utah and one in Peru. We have also
organized the ‘International Mountain Day’ three times in order to
promote mountain issues in the state of Utah and beyond its borders.
Utah Valley University also sent a delegation to the United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) that was held
in Rio de Janeiro in June of 2012. Utah Valley University faculty
and students were able to contribute their thoughts and ideas to the
final document of that conference as well as to the activities under
the umbrella of the Third Global Meeting of the Mountain Partner-ship,
which were held at the Mountain Pavilion during that time.
Mountain issues are of special importance to us as we call
the mountains our home. Utah Valley University is nestled near the
mountain range known as the Wasatch Front. These mountains have
historic significance for all the people of this area. The mountains
have been a source of life and renewal; first to the Native Ameri-cans
who first inhabited this valley and then later to the Mormon
pioneers who used the mountains as a source of water to irrigate
this dry desert land and also as a natural defense against unfriend-ly
armies who sought to push them out of the valley. Mountains
have ever been an indelible part of Utah’s culture and identity.
Raising awareness of mountain issues and creating part-nerships
among mountain communities had been at the heart of
2
all of Utah Valley University’s efforts as a member of the Moun-tain
Partnership. These efforts have had a positive affect for all
who become involved. Utah Valley University students who dili-gently
work with their professors to achieve these goals find them-selves
a part of a global network of mountain communities; they
have seen beyond the boundaries of their own mountains and gain
an increased understanding of the world around them through
firsthand experience. This firsthand experience is in keeping with
the commitment to engaged learning that Utah Valley University
strives for. While many undergraduate universities in North Amer-ica
learn about international diplomacy from books, Utah Valley
University students have opportunities to learn about it from first-hand
experience. And they even created a vehicle for that purpose
by uniting in a coalition of several student clubs at Utah Valley
University, named Utah International Mountain Forum (UIMF).
This volume is symbolic of the efforts of Utah Valley Uni-versity
and UIMF to raise its students as a new generation of lead-ers
in advocacy of the United Nations-related sustainable mountain
development (SMD) agenda within Utah and the region. It con-tains
student essays that discuss the issues of SMD such as the en-vironment
protection, conflict resolution, and alternative energy
use in the mountain regions, the need to constantly be listening
to the prophetic voices among us, gender issues, and the benefits
of governments working together for the good of the mountains.
In section I of this volume essays that related the mountain
issues of Utah and the United States are considered. The conflicts
of the early Mormon pioneers are discussed as well as their political
challenges settling the Utah Valley. Governmental cooperation in
sustaining mountain environments is also a focus on one of the papers.
Section II contains essays that discuss mountain is-sues
in different parts of the globe such as the Ferghana Val-ley
in the mountains of Central Asia and the Andes Mountains.
The final section highlights the successes that Utah Val-ley
University and UIMF has had with the High School Essay
contests with topic chosen to cover mountain issues designated
by the United Nations for every year. The Utah Valley Universi-ty
High School Essay Contests began in 2011 to coincide with the
3
second Women of the Mountains International Conference that
was held in Orem, Utah. High school students from around the
Utah and Salt Lake Valleys were asked to submit essays on top-ics
related to the event. As an established tradition to host those
gathering annually, similar contests were held in 2012 and 2013.
Although, Utah Valley University’s students efforts were
overlooked in the United Nations Secretary General’s (UNSG) re-port
in 2013 on sustainable mountain development, nevertheless,
we will continue to engage youth for the mountain cause advoca-cy
both in the Rocky Mountain region and globally. We hope the
publishing of our first volume of student essay’s will be significant
proof of the renewed efforts from Utah Valley University’s students
as a whole in achieving their goal to make a real difference in the
lives of the local and international communities. The distribution of
Volume I of Youth and the Mountains is scheduled for the 4th Glob-al
Meeting of the Mountain Partnership held in Erzurum, Turkey.
In attempting to change the world in this way
Utah Valley University students are aiming for the clouds
but if we miss, according to the proverb, we will hit the
lofty mountains. The lofty mountains we call home.
David R. Connelly, Editor-in-Chief
Introductory Essay
5
Sustainability of Prophetic Politics Definition, Differentiae
and Deterrents to Sustainability in Societies
By Luis Alfonso Miranda Pérez
Luis Alfonso Miranda Perez is a recent graduate from Utah Valley University, who majored
in Philosophy and minored in Peace and Justice Studies. He comes from a pragmatic
background, having managed humanitarian efforts in Mexico and Central America, youth
leadership projects in Czech Republic and the Netherlands, and a social enterprise in
Japan. He has published and presented his research on the sustainability of democratic
politics and peace. Perez has recently completed the Peace Research program at the Uni-versity
of Oslo. He speaks English, Spanish, French, and Russian. Most recently, he served
as the Co-Chair of the Student Leadership Group at the 1st Russian-American Youth Sum-mit.
Perez intends to attend a premier foreign affairs or conflict transformation graduate
program, as he is in the journey to become a peace mediator.
Although normally understood primarily as a theological notion,
the prophetic is also political. Before introducing my argument, it is im-portant
that we know what the prophetic is, what its distinctions are, and
clarify its notion. To provide context on the question I will pursue, I will
introduce Brueggemann’s views on the task of the prophetic. I will then
follow by sharing the distinctions of the prophetic from Riemer. I will
then solidify the concept and value of the prophetic and will afterwards
introduce the question I seek to explore.
First, Brueggemann defines the task of the prophetic ministry as
to cultivate and evoke a perception alternative to the consciousness of the
dominant culture through criticizing and energizing the alternative com-munity.
Brueggemann believes the prophetic tradition began during the
biblical times of the exodus of the Hebrews from the Pharaoh’s Egypt,
where Moses, a prophet, catalyzed an alternative perception and main-tained
an alternative community to challenge and inspire a partition from
the dominant Egyptian community around them.1 To fulfill the task of cul-tivating
the alternative consciousness, prophets fill the role of criticizers
and energizers. Prophets criticize to deconstruct the dominant conscious-ness.
2 Prophets bring into visibility the existence of a better future against
the realities of the old order to energize.3
Second, Riemer makes the distinctions between the prophetic and
the predictive, the apocalyptic, and the utopian. When talking about the
prophetic, we are not necessarily speaking about predicting or forecast-ing
the future. Rather, prophets are people who speak the words of God,
1Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination, 2nded. Minneapolis: For-tress
Press, 2001, 5.
2Ibid., 3.
3Ibid., 14.
6
provide constructive insights about the gap between ideals and reality, and
demand a fulfillment of God’s will. Similarly, secular prophets are people
who believe in a set of superior universal values, criticize the failure to live
by these values, and demand a redirection to live by them. The prophetic
also isn’t apocalyptic. The prophetic believes that it is in the power of
the people to transform the world within a conventional or constitutional
framework, unlike the apocalyptic which holds that people are insignifi-cant
in changing the course of humanity. Lastly, it is necessary to note the
difference between the prophetic and the utopian. Whereas the utopian
holds a belief that earthly salvation is attainable, the prophetic doesn’t
assume the possibility of being perfect, nevertheless, the prophetic strives
for continuous improvement.4
Prophets are distinguishable characters. Prophets have a great
sensitivity to evil. They have an uncanny ability to detect the intentions
of peoples and policies. Prophets also give importance to the ordinary.
They care about every action, emotion, or decision, as meager or as ample
as it may be, as they see every single decision as elemental to achieving a
grander change. Prophets are luminous and explosive. They are fearless
to voice their opinions and are gifted in communicating and ingraining
into people their vision about the status quo and the future. Prophets are
also iconoclasts. They relentlessly seek to destroy the symbols of social
and religious injustice. Prophets are austerely compassionate. They are
ascetics, dedicated to help humanity and to bring their prophetic vision
to reality. Prophets are skilled or gifted in the use of moral persuasion.
They are persuasive when voicing their vision of a moral living, efficient
at making us feel morally deficient for our failure to do so, and compel us
morally to change our way of living to accommodate a more just society.
Prophets may be singular in ends, but different in means. They might
share, more or less, the ideal of living in a morally just society, but they
might differ in the moral means to achieve it. This means that there are
different traditions of the prophetic. Jesus Christ, Wangari Maathai, Karl
Marx, Mohandas Gandhi, Noam Chomsky, and Martin Luther King Jr.
can be considered examples of prophetic people. The International Com-mittee
of the Red Cross, the International Labor Organization, the United
Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, and African American
Churches during the American civil rights movements could be consid-ered
examples of prophetic institutions.
For social, political, or economic change to come about there must
be a prophetic voice. It is the prophetic voice that serves to disturb us out
of our way of living and engage us in a moral companionship to transform
4Neil, Riemer. Karl Marx and Prophetic Politics. New York: Praeger, 1987, 2-3.
7
society. The prophetic serves as our society’s consciousness. Without any
moral consciousness in policy formulation and implementation, the peace
of a society degrades.5 Lederach says that practical mechanisms similar to
prophetic institutions are needed to define responses from crises in order
to define the future instead of the crisis itself.6 Prophetic-like behavior is
invaluable to continue to transform our societies and to foster peaceful
cohabitation.7
From understanding the value of prophetic to societies and from
witnessing the discontinuity in presence of prophetic traditions, two ques-tions
become attractive to inquisition: How do we attain a prophetic tradi-tion
and how do we sustain a prophetic tradition? For the purposes of this
essay, I will explore the latter question with a more specific perspective.
Although it is important to pursue an understanding of the methodology of
attaining a prophetic culture in societies, it is also important to understand
the issues surrounding the sustainability of a prophetic culture. I will thus
attempt to identify the obstacles to sustaining a prophetic culture within a
society. Societies in which people become either prohibited or antagonized
to follow the four commitments of prophetic politics, due to the obstacles
posed by the Royal Consciousness, will render their prophetic cultures
volatile and unsustainable. To argue this conclusion, I will first explore
the four major commitments of the prophetic politics according to Riemer,
and afterwards engage the concept of Royal Consciousness, according to
Brueggemann, by explaining how it is an obstacle to the sustainability of
a prophetic culture. After that, I will defend my argument from a critique
pertaining sustainability and attainability of prophetic movements, and I
will finish by substantiating my claim through case studies with Mohandas
Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
We must understand the four major commitments of prophetic
politics in order to grasp its relation to the King Consciousness. The four
major commitments are: (1) to value a superior cosmopolitan order; (2)
to social deductive analysis and indomitable criticism of all sociopolitical
orders; (3) to innovative constitutional improvement; and (4) to constant
prophetic scrutiny and visionary projections.8
5Oppenheim, Felix E. The Place of Morality in Foreign Policy. Lexington, MA:
Lexington Books, 1991.
6Lederach, John Paul. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided
Societies. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace,1997, 79.
7MacNair, Rachel M. The Psychology of Peace: An Introduction. West Port, CT:
Praeger, 2003, 141.
8Riemer, Neil. Let Justice Roll: Prophetic Challenges in Religion, Politics, and
Society. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1996, 5.
8
The first major commitment of the prophetic politics is to value of
a superior cosmopolitan order. This means that the prophetic is committed
to act upon values that are universally shared by everyone such as peace,
love, human rights, social justice, ecological health, etc.9 This commitment
establishes a set of universal ethics that require governance to be profitable
for all humans.
The second major commitment of prophetic politics is to social
deductive analysis and indomitable criticism of all sociopolitical orders.
According to Riemer, “[a] sensitivity to the “least free” requires criticism
of all political orders . . . in which the “least free” are struggling for eman-cipation
and fulfillment.”10 To protect the “least free” that Riemer speaks
of, the prophetic must investigate and analyze how the human condition
is being affected by the status quo. This commitment seeks to dissect the
current reality into such depth that it allows for scientific articulation of an
alternative way to that of the dominant culture.
The third major commitment of prophetic politics is to innovative
constitutional improvement. As we are faced with many complex prob-lems,
we require action that is creative, intelligent, and constitutional. The
prophetic necessitates the belief that ideals are attainable. It is through
covenantal or constitutional breakthroughs that the prophetic can cement
progress in narrowing the gap between the prophetic paradigm and reali-ty.
11
The fourth major commitment of the prophetic politics is to con-stant
prophetic scrutiny and visionary projections. This commitment re-quires
the prophetic to voice a projection of the moral world that the pro-phetic
paradigm envisions. This projection links the present decisions and
the future consequences as to achieve a moral accountability and to appeal
to an excitement towards modeling a desirable future.12
The commitments of the prophetic, as described by Riemer, and
the tasks of the prophetic, as described by Brueggemann, are implicitly
related. The four major commitments represent the normative philosophy
of the prophetic whereas the tasks of criticizing and energizing represent
the applied philosophy of the prophetic. One is moral commitment and the
other is moral action. The key to being prophetic is that a prophet must act
upon the prophetic paradigm. When a prophetic paradigm is characterized
by a commitment to a superior ethical order, the concrete coefficient is the
cultivation of an alternative consciousness. Criticism with an objective to
9Ruener, 6.
10Ibid.
11 Ibid.,7.
12Ibid.,8.
9
create a counterculture from a dominant culture requires a commitment
to indomitable criticism of that dominant culture. The prophetic commit-ment
of innovative constitutional improvements guides the conscious lib-eration
from the dominant consciousness. Without the moral persuasion
of visionary projections, it is impossible to energize people into becoming
part of the alternative community.
A prophetic culture allows for alternative communities to be culti-vated.
Both applied theory, meaning the prophetic tasks of criticizing and
energizing, and normative theory, meaning the four major commitments
of the prophetic politics, are necessary to help develop and sustain the
counterculture. The greatest obstacle in being able to sustain a prophetic
culture is the presence of the Royal Consciousness. Biblically, the Royal
Consciousness is the historical program with which Solomon dismantled
the Mosaic prophetic tradition.13 For our purposes it is equivalently the
sociological, political, economic inverse function of the prophetic mode.
The Royal Consciousness served to dismantle the alternative and prophet-ic
consciousness behind the Mosaic, pre-Solomon Hebrew society.14 I will
explain how the three dimensions of the Royal Consciousness affect the
applied and the normative sustainability of the prophetic. I will proceed
by articulating on the dimensions of Economics of Affluence, Oppressive
Social Policy, and Static Religion and their relation as obstacles to the
sustainability of prophetic cultures in societies.
When a society is affected by the Economics of Affluence, an ob-stacle
to the prophetic tasks is posed. “It is difficult to keep a revolution
of freedom and justice under way when there is satiation.”15 Scarcity is
the insufficiency that causes a psychological tickling of the curiosity of
individuals to change something in their behavior to achieve sufficiency.
Scarcity is the uncomfortable tension that happens when someone feels
that their condition does not do justice to them, and this very creative
tension drives them to pursue ways of achieving justice for their condi-tions.
16 The prophetic seeks to find and recognize these insufficiencies or
scarcities, make them visible, and this very act energizes people to change
their behavior. Scarcity, the opposite condition of affluence, is the fuel that
energizes prophetic movements. It is logical, thus, that if the absence of
scarcity, meaning affluence, is to be present in the consciousness of a soci-
13Brueggeman, 25.
14Ibid.
15Brueggeman, 26.
16King, Martin Luther, Jr. I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that
Changed the World, ed. By James Melvin. New York: Harper Collins,
1992, 87.
10
ety, then people would feel less energized to be part of a counterculture, a
resistance culture that requires energy to continue. A condition that Brueg-gemann
suggests is that affluence is malign when it isn’t democratically
distributed.17 Say we have two sectors of society. The first sector happens
to be the prosperous minority and also in power in respect to policy formu-lation.
The second sector happens to be the destitute majority and without
representation in respect to policy formulation. If prosperous, would the
first sector be easily compelled to change policy to suit for the justice of
all, if their needs are already meet and the accommodation would likely
mean a return to scarcity? It is logical to conjecture that the prosperous
sector wouldn’t be as motivated to bring about superior justice as they
would be if they were living under more scarce conditions. When afflu-ence
is present in the consciousness, people feel less compelled to engage
in a prophetic movement. Any movement requires the use of energy, and
if the supply of energy is not continuous, then the movement will become
unsustainable and volatile.
The presence of affluence doesn’t signify the death of action, but
it is likely to distort the moral compass behind the decision of an action.
Affluence doesn’t mean that people won’t make decisions. People make
decisions whether to do things, or not to do things. To decide, one must act
according with their morality. The moral compass of a prophetic decision
is characterized by the four commitments of the prophetic politics. When
affluence is present in the consciousness, it distorts the person’s ability
to make judgments cohesive with the prophetic paradigm. According to
sociological research, there is a relation between making moral decisions
and the self-concept of the person making the decision. People generally
evaluate who they are, and their relationship with others while making
moral decisions.18 The relationship between affluence and the normative-ly
prophetic is that when people under an affluent condition are to make
moral decisions, and they evaluate their self-concept against their status
of affluence, it is less likely that they will commit to prophetic action.
An interesting biblical example that was posed by Brueggemann when he
commented on his model is the example of the Biblical Solomonic society.
He says that the prophetic commitments, inherited from the Mosaic tradi-tion
promoted the idea of taking seriously the needs over their fellow be-ings,
were replaced by consuming-based priority in the affluent Solomonic
society. This changed the attitudes within the population; it encouraged
objectifying their fellow beings as products to be used rather than fellow
17Brueggeman, 26.
18Turner, R. H. “Self and Other in Moral Judgment.” American Sociological
Review, 19, no. 3 (June 1954): 249-259, 258.
11
people to be taken care of. Sustainability of a prophetic culture is difficult
according to Brueggemann in this sort of society where consuming is the
priority.19
Oppressive Social Policy is the foundation of the systematic re-striction
of prophetic discourse. Freedom is the societal pillar through
which many prophetic traditions and their respective societies can devel-op,
as suggested by prophetic paradigms of the likes of Marx,20 King,21
Gandhi,22 and West.23 Some prophets disagree on how to attain that free-dom,
whether by coercion, in the case of Marx24 or moral persuasion, in
the case of Gandhi25 and King.26 Nevertheless, in order to criticize or
energize, the prophetic action requires some sort of freedom to be able to
fulfill its commitments to indomitable criticism of all sociopolitical orders.
The task of criticizing is implicitly interwoven with the task of energizing,
and the systematic oppression of one is inherently of the other.
Rather, what the Oppressive Social Policy endeavors to do is halt
any possibility counter movements, and reallocate, through policy formu-lation,
the energy of the oppressed into the support of the continuous un-democratic
affluent state. During the early history of the United States of
America, African Americans were forced into slavery. Even though the
conventional values of the foundation of the country were said to advocate
that all men were created equal, these values were proven to be misno-mers
to the cause of championing of equality and democracy towards all,
regardless of race. In regards to policy, constitutionally speaking, an Af-rican
American was considered three fifths of a citizen in representation.27
Nevertheless, the unprophetic system of slavery was still the rule and the
cotton industry continued to enrich the dominant white population. Any-one
who dared to question, criticize, or create a consciousness alternative
to the status quo, was punished. Take the creation of the slave codes in
the state of Georgia in 1858 which handed anything from fines, to incar-
19Brueggeman, 200. 27.
20Riemer, Karl Marx and Prophetic Politics, 26-29.
21King, 109.
22Gandhi, Mahatma. The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of his Writings on
His Life, Work, and Ideas, ed. by Louis Fischer. New York: Vintage Books,
1983,192.
23West, Cornel. Prophesy Delivrance!: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christi-anity.
Anniversary edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,2002,
8-9.
24Riemer. Karl Marx and Prophetic Politics,86.
25Gandhi, 79.
26King, 30-31.
27US Constitution. Art I, Sec 2.
12
ceration, for assembling, to prohibition of teaching, reading, or writing to
any slaves.28 West explains this to be a natural reaction of the Royal Con-sciousness.
Every system of domination, in any aspect of society, fears
the presence of the prophetic and will seek to extinguish it.29 The danger
that Oppressive Social Policy poses is that it tends to occlude the path of
the free development of the prophetic. Where the prophetic commitment
to innovative constitutional developments meets the dominant-culture’s
denial to negotiate, the prohibition of discourse that is characteristically
prophetic is found. If a society lacks any sort of fundamental protection
from the systematic prohibition posed by Oppressive Social Policy to-wards
the prophetic, then their prophetic cultures will become weak and
unsustainable.
The establishment of a Static Religion poses the issue of blind pa-triotism.
Although Brueggemann thinks that the Economics of Affluence
and the Oppressive Social Policy were the greatest nullifiers of the alter-native
community of Moses, he asserts that the achievement wasn’t made
without a theological endorsement of the society. This theological en-dorsement
was part of Brueggeman’s theological dimension of the Static
Religion which meant the establishment of a King-regulated accessibility
to God.30 The psycho-political equivalent to Static Religion is the concept
of blind patriotism. Characterized by subjective positive analysis, never
ailing allegiance, and intolerance to prophetic criticism, blind patriotism
is an inflexible favorable attitude towards the state.31 Blind patriotism is a
state of consciousness in which a sentimental and uncritical abandonment
of constructive political engagement happens and the decision making is
sanctioned by the elite of the society. Admittedly, blind patriotism is the
conscious effect of the sociopolitical presence of Static Religion. When
in the presence of Static Religion, people surrender their ability to make
personal judgments which simultaneously relinquishes their ability to be
characteristically prophetic. It would be illogical to assume that one can
continue to be prophetic if one refuses to honestly recognize the faults in
the dominant consciousness and commit to remedy these faults, even if
it means to stand in full opposition of the much idolized dominant con-sciousness.
As a Machiavellian reaction, Static Religion antagonizes criti-
28Wilson, Edward G. A Digest of all the Ordinances of the City of Savannah, and
Various Laws of the State of Georgia, Relative to Said City, Which Were of Force
on the 1st January 1858… Savannah,: John M. Cooper & Co.,182.
29West.
30Brueggeman, 28-31.
31Schatz, Robert T., Ervin Staub, and Howard Lavine. “On the Varieties of
National Attachment: Blind versus Constructive Patriotism.” Political Psy-chology,
20, no.1 (March 1999): 151-174.
13
cal attitudes toward their institutional protégé.
A clear case study can be done with the Muslim-Hindu affairs
during the period of the liberation of India. Gandhi advocated for an im-mediate
commencement of reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims.
However, the opposing parties, being statically religious to their move-ments,
became uncritical of themselves, which led them to engage in a
viciously violent and competitive relationship. Gandhi, a vocal supporter
of unity and justice between Hindus and Muslims in India was seen as a
threat to the patriotic attitudes of the Hindu Nationalist. Soon after the par-tition
of India, Gandhi was assassinated at the hands of Nathuram Godse
under the premise that Gandhi was appeasing Muslims at the expense of
Hindus.32 Today, we have an India and a Pakistan who have gone through
three major wars, one minor war, and have seen themselves at the edge
of nuclear war in a few occasions. The Indo- Pakistani relations have not
yet achieved a sustainable peace in the region. The prophetic movement
that sought unification and peace amongst people has since then almost
extinguished. When Static Religion is present in a society, its phenomena
is antagonizing and its consequence to the prophetic is that it renders it
unsustainable and more volatile.
Alternative cultures need to be cultivated. They are living and
learning social organisms. Prophetic movements grow and shrink. They
are born and some of them die. Their niche is to catalyze just and peace-ful
societies. In order for the prophetic sustain its task of criticizing and
energizing, there must be a freedom in its society to pursue the prophetic
paradigm. I have presented here the obstacles to fulfilling those tasks in
the matter of the three dimension of the Royal Consciousness. If pro-phetic
movements aren’t protected against the Royal Consciousness, they
become hindered in the presence of affluence, prohibited in the presence
of socially oppressive policy, and antagonized in the presence of state
idolatry. They encounter difficulty, become volatile, and are eventually
rendered unsustainable.
This is not to say that prophetic cultures can’t be born in the pres-ence
of the Royal Consciousness. Gandhi began his liberation movement
from imperial Britain in South Africa, after a first class privilege was de-nied
in a train, and a small group of people decided to meet to talk and
begin to plant a dissenting seed that grew into a larger scale movement that
gave birth to more critically prophetic institutions like the Indian Opinion
and the South African Indian Congress.33 Martin Luther King Jr. joined
a Civil Rights movement that was growing from a decade before. What
32 Gandhi, 307-321.
33 Gandhi, 31-75.
14
made King monumentally influential was his way of energizing the alter-native
community to a stratum so unprecedented, that for the first time, the
African American counterculture was so relevant that the dominant con-sciousness
could not ignore it. If no injustices are present, the prophetic
would not be present. It is necessary for injustice or oppression to exist
in order for the prophetic to come into practice. Therefore, my argument
about sustainability is not meant to answer the question of how to attain
prophetic cultures. Having in mind, however, the delicate necessities in
cultivating an alternative consciousness in a society, and the effects of
unadulterated exposure to Royal Consciousness, leads us to conclude that
the prophetic isn’t sustainable if it isn’t being protected.
I offer no guidelines of protection of the prophetic. Constructive-ly,
the dire question that follows is: Where can we learn how to protect
prophetic cultures from unsustainability? If one is to accept that the pro-phetic
and the counter-prophetic to be a philosophical discipline of the
that exists only outside of our senses, or that they are metaphysical in that
only a transcendental presence can provide us with an understanding of
them, then such question begs a theological response, and risks never to
be answered under present social scientific methods. However, from my
perspective, the prophetic and the counter prophetic are phenomena that
are economic, political, and sociological in nature. This means that the
discipline of the prophetic is empirical, methodological, and tangibly pal-pable.
If such, then we can say that in order to understand how to move
away from unsustainability, the answer will reside in a holistic approach in
policy, attitudinal formulation, and implementation in the fields of social,
political, and economic science. And yet, even though I accept the pro-phetic
and the counter-prophetic to be empirical, I can’t deny the profound
personal sentiment that that the prophetic is nonetheless transcendentally
cosmic and divine.
Section I:
Mountain Issues in Utah and In the United States
16
Conflict in the State of Utah: A Survey of Conflict Among the
Indigenous Paiutes and Modern Threats to State Security
By John McClure
John McClure is an honors graduate of Utah Valley University. He received his bachelor
of arts in International Relations. During his time at Utah Valley University, McClure led
seven different campus organizations in efforts regarding sustainable mountain develop-ment,
political engagement, and student government. He has been published several times
on topics of conflict in mountain regions and terrorism. He has also taken part in glob-al
efforts in Sustainable Mountain Development and International Security including the
Rio+20 Global Conference in Brazil as well as the Stanford University US/Russia Forum
in Moscow. McClure is currently attending graduate school at the University of St. Andrews
in Scotland. He is earning a master’s degree in Terrorism and Security Studies from the
oldest and one of the most prestigious programs in the world. After graduation, McClure
is eager to begin work in the field toward the study and prevention of terrorism as well as
aspects of diplomacy and the relevance of regional conflict to sustainable development.
Conflict is a term often used synonymously with mountainous
regions. The most numerous conflicts in the world occur within mountain
zones.1 Upon recognition that conflict is predominantly a mountain issue,
it is important to identify both the factors that cause conflict, and the fac-tors
that exacerbate conflict in mountain regions and amongst mountain
people. Primary factors that cause conflict in mountain regions include:
isolation, governmental oppression, and the threat of emerging statehood,
the last being the major cause of regional conflict within mountain zones.
The underlying factors that add to the rise of conflict in mountain regions
are: ineffective governance, poor resource management, and the rise of
communications.2 These factors both primary and underlying lead to var-ious
types of conflict and consequences that have long term effects on
mountain people.
This research will underline key issues of conflict within the state
of Utah; beginning with its initial development as a state and concluding
with pressing issues that face the state today. Key elements of root con-flict,
and insights into conflict prevention will also be addressed. Evidence
will be provided to show that conflict in Utah historically stems from the
same catalysts of conflict as in other mountain societies, and that through
research of past issues of conflict within the state of Utah, regional experts
are able to provide information that directly leads to best practices in con-flict
resolution.
Paiute Conflict with a Eurocentric Settlement
1 Starr, Frederick. Key Issues for Mountain Areas. editors Martin Price, et al.
United Nations University Press, 169.
2 Ibid., 170-173.
17
Within Utah’s history of conflict regarding mountain people, the
Paiute tribe has undergone many of the textbook elements that create and
exacerbate conflict within their mountainous regions. The primary issue
that has created conflict within this indigenous people is the threat of an
emerging state and its accompanying govemental oppression. The under-lying
issues that exacerbate this conflict are resource management and
isolation. As late as the mid nineteenth century, the southern Paiutes were
primarily a hunter-gatherer society who also relied on small-scale hor-ticulture.
The Paiutes planted and irrigated gardens of corn, beans, and
squash next to permanent sources of water.3 In the 1850s the Mormon
Church, which was centralized in Salt Lake City, organized colonies of
settlers to be dispatched and ordered to build communities next to virtually
all water sources in the Paiute inhabited country.
Over the next sixty years, the Mormon settlers appropriated the
Paiute land and assumed control of the most precious resource available to
the indigenous people: water. Within this span of six decades, the Paiutes
were successfully conquered and relegated to four small tracts of land.
These mountain people were subject to isolation and removed from access
to their natural resources, both of which are underlying sources of conflict
that arise from the primary source of an emerging state. 4
During the first ten years of Paiute/ Mormon interaction, there was
competition for resources in the region. These two ethnic groups freely
contended to limit the other’s access to water sources. In the early stages
of Mormon community development, there were power struggles and im-balances.
Over time, the Mormons signed peace treaties with neighboring
allies of the Paiutes, limiting their ability to garner strength in numbers
and effectively limiting their chances of regaining their territory by force.
In the ensuing years, the Mormons monopolized Paiute land and resources
by overwhelming not only the Paiutes, but their aboriginal competitors.
This severely limited the adaptive capabilities of the Paiutes to the new
Eurocentric culture, and represented an effort by the Mormon settlers to
establish a territory of their own through the exploitation of both natural
resources and those currently in possession of them.5 Such actions embody
another subcategory of conflict causation: the natural resource diversion
by an external entity within a community of mountain dwellers without
3 Evans, Michael J., and Stoffle, Richard W. “Resource Competition and Popu-lation
Change: A Kaibab Paiute Ethnohistorical Case” The American Society for
Ethnohistory, 23, no. 2 (Spring 1976): 173-197, 175-176.
4 Ibid., 181-182.
5Evans, 183-186.
18
proper compensation.6
Having identified the factors that caused conflict among the Pai-utes
in the nascent stages of the Eurocentric settlements, it is important
to address the consequences and cases that have arisen from this govern-mental
oppression and its road to a new statehood. In doing this it will be
necessary to identify the main contributing factors to conflict, which are:
resources being diverted from mountain people, isolation, and ineffective
governance.
The first case of consequence is the diversion of natural resources
from the Paiutes. In past research on conflict in the mountain regions it is
stated that the most conflict prone communities are those that export nat-ural
resources without the ability to purchase essential goods and services
in return. In the case of the Paiutes, they are no exception. Irrigation ditch-es
dug by Mormon settlers diverted water away from their streams which
not only fed the fields in which their livestock grazed, but also gave life to
their summer food supply of grass and grains.7 Through this exploitation
of the Paiutes resources, and the lack of compensation, they were almost
immediately forced into dependency and wage labor to the very people
who took their resources from them. Between 1926 and 1980, 80 percent
of Paiutes in the state of Utah lived on land that was controlled either
directly or indirectly by the Mormon Church. This indigenous mountain
people of Utah were successfully conquered and their resources effort-lessly
taken from them without compensation, and all without warfare or
treaties. It is important to note that within mountain communities, con-flict
does not always manifest itself in the form of violence or warfare.
And in the case of the Paiutes, the manifestation was the condemnation
of a mountain people by sending out their most precious resource without
compensation.8
The next case of consequence is the isolation of the Paiutes. Iso-lation
is traditionally a source of conflict within mountain communities
that causes dislocation and a psychology of victimhood among its people.
In the case of the Paiutes, they are no exception. Having been removed
from their land and culture, which was developed through centuries of
mountain living, the Paiutes were dislocated and effectively became wards
of the state government.9 The Paiutes were scattered across the state into
6 Starr, 172.
7Knack, Martha C. “Church and State in the History of Southern Paiutes in
Cedar City, Utah.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology. 19, no.
2 (1997): 159-178, 159.
8Ibid.
9Ibid.,161.
19
small reservations that were sometimes devoid of natural resources and
had very minimal attachment to the modern world. Because of this, it was
not uncommon for the tribe to often migrate from reservation to reserva-tion
in order to survive. A diaspora of the Paiute tribes were created as
such. 10
The last case of consequence involving the Paiutes is the inef-fective
governance from the emerging state. In a region of Utah where
the former indigenous people were forced under sectarian control, these
people were not provided adequate representation within the new emerg-ing
governmental body. Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th
century, the Paiutes were governed by Mormon land owners and by the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Neither of these organizations enforced
the First Amendment rights of freedom of religious practices, and even
when the Native American Religious Freedoms Act was enacted, rights
of these mountain people were never protected from the imposition of
an established religion. The result of this lack of representation and inef-fective
governance had severe repercussions on the Paiutes. Aside from
the scattered land that was afforded the Paiutes, their dependency on the
settlers for employment of labor rapidly drove them into poverty, which
lasted well into the 1970s.11
After decades of government neglect, it had finally been recog-nized
that the Paiutes were not benefitting from life under these condi-tions,
and that the issues resulting from the extended hand of the state
government were perpetuating the conflict within this indigenous tribe.
The US government resolved to allocate funds from the federal poverty
program and divert as many Paiutes away from the organized structure of
the Mormon Church. Though the government tried to preserve this moun-tainous
people, several factors still worked against the Paiute Tribe. The
ownership of the land previously inhabited by the Paiute, now owned by
the Church, complicated aspects of the Paiutes life. Their legal standing,
access to housing, economic welfare, and access to health care were all
jeopardized due to state governance.12
The history of this conflict among the Paiutes in the state of Utah
has great relevance to issues in mountain communities around the world.
Through research, certain methods of conflict prevention and best prac-tices
can be derived from a history of conflict causing catalysts, and inef-fective
governance. In a sense, over the span of two centuries, we can ef-fectively
surmise what to avoid in a situation of an emerging government
10 Evans, 191.
11Knack, 169-172.
12Ibid., 172-173.
20
cohabiting with an indigenous mountain people. The information gathered
over time and the research that has since ensued is also indispensable to
the derivation of best practices that can be applied to the preservation of
mountain people, their culture, and way of life. These practices include the
implementation of methods that have already proven themselves, such as:
traditional means already employed by mountain people themselves; ad-dress
security issues and social/economic problems together, not separate-ly;
scale initiatives to the actual needs of the people; actively engage the
mountain community as participants and not merely as welfare recipients;
and to embrace the private sector while simultaneously trying to maintain
a connection to traditional cultures.13
There are a number of solutions that can be applied to help pre-vent
situations of conflict. First, it is important to monitor social as well
as economic conditions. Social and economic conditions exist in parallel
with each other and cannot be effectively ascertained for means of re-search
if not compared in accordance with each other. In the case of the
Paiutes, economic conditions were not taken into consideration. While
social aspects were assessed (the transition of an indigenous way of life
into a semi-subservient labor ready workforce for the new colonists), the
economic conditions in which they lived were not taken into account and
often neglected when transitioning them into a way of life which was for-eign
to their own.
The second practice is the implementation of methods that have
already proven themselves, and to actively engage the mountain commu-nity
as participants and not merely as welfare recipients. In the case of the
Paiutes, the culture of a hunter-gatherer society should have been main-tained
and integrated into the lifestyles of the burgeoning colonists that
were creating new communities and changing the culture and way of life
in the region. Had the Paiutes been able to continue to cultivate the land
and provide resources not only for the new inhabitants, but continue to
hold to the culture that had sustained them for generations prior, the inte-gration
of the Paiutes would have had a much smoother and cohesive inte-gration
into a more modern society. If this practice had taken place, rather
than usurping the Paiute water supply, supplanting the deep rooted culture,
and decreasing the independence of an indigenous people, the avoidance
of driving mountain people into poverty could have been averted by in-cluding
them in the decision making and governing of the community.
This would have also allowed for the Paiutes to maintain a firm hold on
their culture as opposed to a sharp transition into poverty and a life of la-bor
foreign to a mountain people.
13Starr, 177-179.
21
These practices all tie into the last implementation, which is the
scaling of initiatives to meet the actual needs of the mountain people. In
the case of the Paiutes/Mormon conflict, the initiatives of the Mormon
settlers were to move south within the Utah territory, occupy land, and as-sume
control of the most valuable resources in the region. In doing so, they
forced an entire mountain population to impoverishment and dependency,
and nearly eradicated a culture and a way of life. If the initiative had been
scaled to meet the needs of the indigenous people, for example; integration
of the Paiutes into the settlers initiatives by offering fair compensation for
the resources used, or the employment of the Paiutes’ capabilities in the
field of horticulture, then a culture could have been better preserved and
the independence of a mountain people may have been maintained.
Through the research of peace and conflict in the mountain re-gions,
we can adequately gather information that will benefit the moun-tain
community as a whole. Through the implementation of best practices,
the way of life that has become important to mountain people, of who
comprise 24 percent of the global population, can be preserved and may
continue to successfully integrate into a changing society. Resources that
are the driving force for mountain people remain a valuable asset and not
a plunder for the extended hand of emerging governments.
Conflict in Utah Today
As Utah enters a new century, the Native American residents are
still faced with adversity that has been caused by emerging governments.
What was once an emerging government is no longer in its seminal stages,
and the once aboriginal dwellers of Utah are now commingled with gen-erations
upon generations of Utah inhabitants who face very real conflict
on a regular basis. While the natives continue to struggle with an under-representation
and are laden with a indigence that is seemingly unshak-able,
those existing spawn of the original Eurocentric colonizers face new
threats from surrounding entities as well as international organizations
who seek to disrupt their way of life.
Threats to the Original Mountain People
Modern threats to the Native Americans of Utah have ultimate-ly
been caused from a transition of control to dependency. Having been
placed on reservations with lackluster governmental assistance, a culture
that once thrived is now on the fringe. Without any structured or organized
oversight for these reservation communities, gaming and internal corrup-tion
have continued to slow the progress of the Utah Native American as
well as further aid to their indigent existence.14
14Sanders, Sgt. Drew. Interview. West Jordan Police Department, West Jordan,
Utah. May 15, 2012.
22
In the case of the Utah Native Americans, the missing link in the
process to rescue the ailing society is adequate representation within the
Utah legislature. As it is now, there is not one Native American represen-tative
in the Utah House or Senate. This speaks volumes for the amount of
political activity amongst the Native Americans of Utah. Not only are the
indigenous tribes of the state left out of the political process, but the lack
of interest in state governance is continuing to subdue this fledgling demo-graphic.
Until there is the desire for political involvement and integration
from within Utah’s Native American population as well as an adequate
representation in the Utah House, this problem will only perpetuate.
Conflict and Threats to the Modern Indigenous of Utah as a Whole
In the case of the majority population of Utah residents, new is-sues
in conflict have arisen within its mountain communities. These issues
include drug trafficking and the new presence of foreign drug cartels, gang
activity, radical movements and militias, terrorist threats, and a sudden
trend toward extreme racial and cultural diversity. Though these current
issues in Utah differ from those dealt with by the aboriginal and the early
euro American settlers, these issues of conflict all stem from similar seeds
of conflict.
Drug Trafficking and Foreign Cartels
In the case of the rise of drug use, drug trafficking and the insur-gence
of foreign led cartels; these issues all arise from one of the leading
causes of conflict within mountain zones, that of international support and
funding. International support and funding relates to the issue of either
a secular or religious movement, which seeks to mobilize the poor, or
oppressed within a region or community and create a radical movement
or illegal operation for a means to survive. This includes drug produc-tion,
drug trafficking, and cartel activity by a people for means of survival.
These means are provided for by an outside or international entity. In the
case of Utah, Mexican cartels have played a key role in the trafficking and
distribution of illegal narcotics in the state of Utah. Not only have these
outside actors utilized those poor in the state of Utah to move and sell the
illegal narcotics, but the illegal location and cultivation of marijuana by
members of these cartels is also an issue in areas of Utah.
These areas are particularly prone to conflict as since they are
often under the protection of armed cartel members who are under the
directive to protect both the product and their livelihood. Another outside
source has in turn utilized this illegal organizational strategy and collabo-rated
to increase the capital gain on illegal narcotics. Recently it has come
to light that Afghan cartels have been working in conjunction with Mexi-
23
can cartels in the import and distribution of heroin. Afghanistan being one
of the largest producers in the world of the opium poppy used to produce
the illicit drug have since produced cartels that have taken advantage of
the established cartel presence in the state of Utah and used it to increase
their production and global distribution of heroin. 15
Gang Activity and Violent Crime
Another source of conflict in Utah is the presence and increase
of gang activity and violent crime within its mountain communities. This
may in fact be related to the isolation of mountain communities and their
tendency to develop a sense of lawlessness.16 In the case of Utah, gangs
tend to adhere to a racial profile. Mexican and Polynesian Gangs are
among the most prevalent in Utah.17 It is these minority groups that in an
act of persecution band together to facilitate organized crime.18
This rise in gang activity has also lead to a seeming rise in vio-lence
in the state of Utah as well. Another victim of gang activity in the
state is the homeless. Salt Lake City in particular has quite a high home-less
population and the gangs will often threaten these people to provide
cover for various drug transactions. The homeless will often congregate in
public areas such as parks. It is in these areas that these gangs will conceal
themselves in order to undertake illegal transactions. The community will
often turn a blind eye to the plight of the homeless and the Utah gangs will
take advantage of this and utilize them as human camouflage.19
Radical Movements, Militias and Terrorist Threats
Yet another key source of conflict within the state of Utah is radi-cal
movements, militias and terrorist threats. Radical movements and mi-litias
can all be disseminated from the same source. When state govern-ments
fail to address issues from non-governmental forces the breakdown
of legitimate authority fails and leaves the door open for an environment
of minimal security in which to incubate criminal activity.20 This is widely
seen throughout Utah in its self-armed and low governed militia groups.
These groups often form on the basis of radical ideas and arise from a
place of virtual lawlessness. 21 Though these groups primarily contrive
out of foreign groups including cartels, refugees and gangs, many militias
from within Utah’s indigenous do arise. These groups become danger-
15Burbank, Chief Chris. Interview. Salt Lake City Police Department. Salt Lake
City, Utah. October 17, 2012.
16 Starr, 171.
17Burbank.
18 Starr,171.
19Burbank.
20 Starr,174.
21Burbank.
24
ous when they enact on their radical ideas and inflict violence on the sur-rounding
communities. One example relates to the Mexican drug cartels
in Southern Utah engaging in combat with local authorities in protection
of a marijuana crop.22
Terrorist threats have also become a common source of conflict in
the state of Utah. Salt Lake City is one of the sixty-four urban metropolitan
areas that have been designated by the federal government as “high-threat,
high-density” with regard to acts of terrorism.23 Though Utah does not
have a history decorated with terrorist acts, its geographical location and
abundance of natural resources have placed high on the list of potential
areas of terrorist activity after the 9/11 attacks.24 Utah is privy to numerous
reservoirs and watersheds which countless citizens from within the state
and surrounding areas are dependent upon. This makes is an ideal place
for a terrorist strike. Rather than a direct attack such as the 9/11 attacks,
which took the lives of several thousands, an attack on Utah’s water sup-ply
could potentially be detrimental to countless more.25 Another target
for terrorists and extremist groups is the central location of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. This is the headquarters
of one of the largest religious organizations in the world, which makes it a
keen target for zealots and extremists.
Extreme Racial and Cultural Diversity
The last major contributor to conflict in the state of Utah is a
boom in racial and cultural diversity. Utah has the seventh-largest and
fastest-growing immigrant population in the nation, a measure that the
Department of Homeland Security and the FBI associate with potential
threats.26 Where this would seem to be a positive attribute for many com-munities,
in Utah it often acts as a catalyst to conflict on a broad scale. In
the last couple decades Utah as well as Idaho and Montana have seen a
major influx of refugees from Somalia and Bosnia as well as many seek-ing
political refuge from Middle Eastern countries. This in and of itself is
not a source of conflict, but the tensions that have arisen after 9/11 attacks
have to some degree heightened.
Additionally, a lack of religious and cultural tolerance within the
state has led to an alienation of these minority groups. Several backlashes
from this alienation are as follows: First there has been a rise in unemploy-
22Sanders.
23Price, Martin F. Key Issues For Mountain Areas. NY, New York: United Na-tions
University Press, 2004.
24 Sanders.
25 Ibid.
26 Price.
25
ment among these groups. With less tolerance for these refugees a scarcity
of jobs being provided for them rises and only exacerbates the potential for
these groups to react out of oppression. Second, Utah law enforcement has
lost out on a great resource of intelligence gathering. By alienation Arabs,
Muslims and Middle Eastern Americans the state of Utah has lost out on
many potential sources of quality intelligence in which to implement its
counterterrorist measures. Third, the alienation has led to a loss of behav-ior
profiling and led to racial profiling. This has made it so the minority
groups are afraid to approach the law enforcement groups to report crimi-nal
acts for fear of being profiled and victimized themselves.27
Best Practices
Causes of conflict in the state of Utah are similar to that of other
mountainous regions around the world. Yet in a developed state with a
modernized society of mountain people, conflict also modernizes as well.
This type of modernized conflict requires an equally modernized course of
action and application of best practices to counter the conflict and main-tain
order in a state cohabited with such cultural diversity.
The first step is adequate representation in the Utah house. As dis-cussed
before it is imperative that the Native Americans seek out a more
active role in the Utah political process as well as representation in the
Utah state government. This will insure that the best interests of this in-digenous
people will remain a central focus of the state as it progresses
and continues to modernize and will insure that those underrepresented
do not get sidelined as the world around them continues to advance. This
includes the establishing of a system to monitor both social and economic
conditions in the state of Utah, so proper data can be recorded to address
actual conditions.28 This coupled with the active engagement of the moun-tain
people themselves will help them maintain a more viable institution of
social welfare and public health.
The next course of action for Utah in dealing with conflict ad-dresses
drug trafficking, cartel activity, violent crime and terrorist activity.
Utah’s law enforcement has utilized three key strategies that are central
to sustainable mountain development conflict prevention. These strategies
include making mountain issues an international action, learning from tra-dition
and actively engaging the mountain people themselves.29 The Salt
Lake City Police Department has utilized these key elements in combating
these particular areas of conflict. First, the Chief of Police has collaborated
with governmental agencies such as the FBI and the CIA as well as begin-
27Burbank.
28Starr, 176.
29Starr, 176-178.
26
ning a fully operational Intelligence Center within its own department.30
This collaboration works in intelligence gathering and the prevention of
violent crime and implementation of counterterrorism through a series of
joint task forces. “US intelligence and homeland security agencies and
the Department of Justice measure the potential terrorist threat to Utah
by analyzing data, including the following: Utah is one of 15 states where
US attorneys secured no terrorism convictions from September 11, 2001,
through March 2010, according to the Justice Department.”31 After 9/11
Utah law enforcement has changed its focus on preventative measures and
intelligence gathering rather than a response system to violent and terrorist
acts.
In response to the growing diversity in the culture and ethnic
establishment in the state of Utah and its direct effect on organized and
violent crime, Utah has taken traditional practices and involved the Inter-national
aid of Israel in its implementation of tactics in dealing with this
issue of conflict. Utah has followed Israel’s model of creating neighbor-hood
upon neighborhood of empowered citizens regardless of religious or
ethnic background and made them accountable for their own environment.
Over the last six years, the Salt Lake City Police Department has taken
measures to become more approachable to its citizens and more interac-tive
within the community. The chief of the Salt Lake City Police came to
the realization that Israel has armed an entire nation of its citizens with the
tools necessary to defend themselves through mandatory military service.
While Utah does not participate in this practice it does implore its citizens
to act in a cohesive manner and take charge of their neighborhoods. This
holistic approach builds credibility in the community, with a watchful eye
that exists all the time, not just when there is a problem. There is never
enough police to prevent all the issues of conflict, but there are always
enough community members.32
Conclusion
It is apparent now more than ever that there are common catalysts
among all mountain communities that create similar sources of conflict. It
is also apparent that this conflict is evolving with developed communities
rather than developing communities. Through the study and identification
of these conflicts and the archiving of current data on conflict in mountain
regions around the world, it becomes a more simple process to approach
these causes of conflict and address them in a more pragmatic fashion.
Through the collection of data and the implementation of best practices
30Burbank.
31Price.
32Burbank.
27
the issues of conflict become a more manageable problem to approach;
and with realization that all mountain communities suffer from the same
conflict related issues, more visibility is brought to the importance of ad-dressing
the mountain zones of the world which house over 24 percent of
its population.
28
Mormon’s Political Challenges Settling in Utah
By Melanie Woodbury
Melanie Woodbury will graduate from Utah Valley University April 2014 with a bachelor
of arts in Political Science and a minor in Chinese. She began studying Mandarin Chi-nese
during her freshman year at Provo High School. Following her graduation from high
school, Woodbury traveled to Taiwan and China to study the Chinese language and cul-ture.
After graduating from Utah Valley University, she plans to return to China to get her
master’s degree in the Chinese language and become certified to work for the government
as a Chinese language interpreter.
Introduction
Throughout the existence of communities in mountain regions, the
state legislators governing those mountain communities have been taking
measures to collect the resources the presiding bureaucrats deemed nec-essary.
These mountain communities face difficulties that challenge their
way of life, which include harsh climate and socio-economic conditions.
To address these challenges, bureaucrats implement policies and institu-tions
to help pre-existing mountain communities sustain their culture and
the mountain environment.
The situation regarding sustainable mountain development in
Utah is unique compared to most mountain communities. While Utah has
its fair share of rural mountain communities, their mountain people differ
from those of other mountain environments. In most mountainous areas,
the majority of the people living in those regions are indigenous to the
area. Most of the people currently living in rural mountain communities
in Utah are either not of Native American descent and have migrated from
areas outside of Utah, or they share lineage with pioneers who have settled
in the Utah Valley. Utah legislatures did not take measures to preserve the
culture and lifestyle of the natives after the Mormon pioneers had set-tled
in the Salt Lake Valley. Whatever natives have lived in Utah have
either been re-located to other areas, or exterminated. The same can also
be said of people who have settled in states outside of Utah and the Rocky
Mountain region. The establishment of Utah’s mountainous communities
is a unique situation, because the Salt Lake Valley was established by a
religious group trying to build a community while overcoming challenges
with agriculture, irrigation, handling pressures coming from Native Amer-icans,
as well as persecution and political pressures from the US govern-ment.
The measures that the Mormon settlers have taken in building a city
in the Salt Lake Valley have set the ground work for present populations
in Utah and in other surrounding Rocky Mountain states. The end result of
Brigham Young and the Mormon settler’s efforts in dealing with the agri-
29
culture, facing challenges with the Natives, and resolving issues dealing
with creating policies and institutions to establish Utah communities is
that Utah has developed as a state, as well as the present Rocky Mountain
region.
Early History: Moving to the Valley
When Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers traveled to cre-ate
a settlement in Utah, they didn’t have the advantages that pre-existing
mountain tribes had. Mountain communities in countries such as Cuba,
Morocco, and Nepal pre-date the establishment of the Mormon settlement.
Current mountain tribes have known the challenges of living in their re-spective
areas for thousands of years. Before Brigham Young and the Mor-mon
settlers made their way to the Salt Lake Valley, their knowledge of
the terrain was very limited. Brigham Young had a vision to create a set-tlement
that would be optimal for agricultural development for a healthy
economy.
Before they made their way, Brigham Young had planned on
creating a settlement in Salt Lake two years ahead of time. According to
Richard Jackson’s article, “Mormon Perception and Settlement,” Brigham
Young had researched information about the Salt Lake area from materi-al
that had been published, as well as from interviews with trappers and
explorers who had been to the location he was planning on taking the
pioneers to. Discussions with these fur trappers from the American Fur
Trapping Company included information about the roads that they would
be traveling, any possible encounters with Natives, and the climate of the
Bear River Valley. 1
The church leaders had plans to relocate the settlers south of the
location they were residing in. Some of the main issues that church leaders
were concerned with when planning on settling in the Salt Lake Valley
included, “foreknowledge of the environment of the valley, the difficulties
of crossing the Great Plains, the initial reaction to the environment of the
valley, and the origin of irrigation techniques.”2 When the Mormon settlers
were migrating out of Illinois to flee from persecution, the church leaders
ideally planned to settle in either Oregon or California.
The Oregon region was deemed an appropriate area for the Mor-mon
pioneers to claim as their settlement after reading glowing reports
about the vast amount of promising cultivatable land, as well as having
the capacity to create a lot of opportunity for jobs for a healthy economy.
1 Jackson, Richard H. “Mormon Perception and Settlement.” Annals Of The
Association Of American Geographers, 68, no. 3 (1978): 317-334. Academic
Search Premier, 330.
2Ibid.
30
Regarding this, one report of Oregon stated, “It abounds in the raw mate-rial
of commerce, and it is adapted to almost every variety of productive
labor.”3
Reports about the California territory was twice as enticing to
church leaders and Mormon settlers. There were many glowing accounts
of the optimum climate and the fertility of the soil. Joseph Smith, the
prophet before Brigham Young was appointed as the next church leader,
had other plans regarding where the settlers would move to. Instead of
looking to move to California, Smith proposed to move the settlers to the
Rocky Mountains. After Smith had made an announcement stating that
the Mormon settlers should move from Illinois to the Rocky Mountain
area, several Mormon newspapers started to publish information about the
Rocky Mountains given from accounts from fur trappers, government ex-plorers,
and travelers who were passing through to reach the territories in
Oregon and California. Descriptions of the Utah region of made its way
to Mormon newspapers. Explorer, John C. Fremont’s reports, as well as
accounts given by other explorers who have been to the area, were often
given in a lavish manner, written in a way that made the area sound more
appealing than it really was. It was this kind of propaganda that led the
Mormon settlers to believe in a few false pre-conceptions about the Salt
Lake Valley.
One of the most important aspects of these explorer’s grandi-ose
descriptions of the Utah valleys concerned the quality of agricultural
potential in the region they were planning on traveling to. One explorer
named Lansford Hastings gave Brigham Young and the Mormon settlers
over inflated promises of the fertility of the soil. Hastings would also give
false statements concerning the area north of the 42nd parallel. He claimed
that the area north of the 42nd parallel was not a seemingly good region
for the settlers to travel to. As Brigham Young was leading the settlers,
he would direct the traveling group more and more southward into arid
regions based on Hasting’s claims.
Utah Settlement: Agricultural Changes
The initial impression of the Mormons to the Salt Lake Valley
was favorable. Despite the arid climate they were in, the pioneers were
still capable of irrigating the land. The Saints ran into a few complica-tions
going deeper into the more arid southern regions of Utah, because
Mormon leaders claimed that the areas north of the state were too cold.
Despite Brigham Young’s claims that the pioneers shouldn’t settle north of
Utah and that it would be more ideal for them to create settlements more
and more south of Utah, the settlers had created communities throughout
3Jackson, 320.
31
different areas of Utah.
As the pioneers were creating settlements throughout Utah, they
had experienced a number of roadblocks. Thomas G. Alexander’s [book,
Utah, The Right Place] explains three difficulties that the pioneers had to
overcome: First, they had to establish a base settlement for growing crops
and building homes for themselves and those who followed. Second, they
wanted to find other sites for towns for the thousands who would follow;
and third, they needed to make arrangements to guide the remaining Saints
from Winter Quarters and Kanesville to Utah.
Understanding what needed to be accomplished, early pioneer
parties had begun projects to irrigate land, and cultivate farmland. Accord-ing
to Alexander, “Orson Pratt and his party had begun plowing and plant-ing
in the easily worked sandy loam, and they damned City Creek and
began to irrigate the newly planted fields.”4 Pratt’s party learned how to
irrigate the land from observing different irrigation techniques used in dif-ferent
areas, such as Italy, the Middle East, New Mexico, and California.
Despite the success of these techniques, there were a few areas the settlers
were residing in where their irrigation techniques weren’t as successful.
According to pioneer’s accounts, one settler had stated, “this is shurely a
desert. Several springs broke out above the city suplys for erogation the
land is very full of some kind of mineral [alkali] this obstructs the growth
of much vegetation.”5According to other settler’s accounts, there would
also be frequent flash floods that would destroy the dams and severely
damage, if not completely wipe out the settler’s crops.
Resolving Agricultural Challenges: Irrigation
In order to resolve issues concerning the aridity of the environ-ment,
the settlers utilized methods that originated from irrigation sys-tems
used by the Spanish. The Mormon settlers used these methods and
modified them for the different environments they would try to cultivate.
As they were irrigating the land, they would organize committees that
would establish certain plots of land where they would build dams and
cut trenches to transfer the water in order to irrigate the land. In a more
detailed account of the pioneer’s methods the article, “Mormons Reach the
Great Salt Lake, Utah” published in History Today explains that they were
able to utilize the melted snow from the mountains to the east and north
of the lake, which was successful in developing the land. The irrigation
systems that they used had influenced modern systems of irrigation used to
4Alexander, Thomas G. “Utah, The Right Place.” Utah History to Go. Utah Gov-ernment.
http://historytogo.utah.gov/index.html.
5 Jackson, Richard H. “Mormon Perception And Settlement.” Annals of The
Association Of American Geographers, 1978, 328.
32
cultivate the agriculture in Utah, as well as the agriculture throughout the
rest of the United States, particularly the Rocky Mountain region.6
Utah Settlement: Trouble with the Natives
Before the Mormons had embarked on their journey across the
Great Plains, the first people residing in Utah consisted of many different
Native American tribes that included the Navajos, Utes, Shoshones, etc. In
David Rich Lewis’ article, “Native Americans in Utah,” before the Mor-mon
settlers had arrived to the Salt Lake Valley explorers and trappers,
which included Rivera, Dominguez, and Escalante, Provost, Robidoux,
Ashley, Ogden, Smith, Carson, Bridger, and Goodyear had interacted and
traded with the Native American people in Utah throughout their explora-tions
from 1776 to 1847. According to Lewis, the explorers and trappers
that had intermingled with them had “established economic relations but
exerted little if any political control over the native peoples of Utah.”7
When the Mormon migration began there were more than 20,000
Indians living in Utah proper.8 After the Mormons had settled in 1847, the
area that they chose to settle in the Salt Lake Valley served as a “neutral
or buffer zone” between the Shoshones and Utes. As the Mormons created
settlements down south of the Utah Valley, the settlers and the Natives
began to come across some issues because their settlements were large-ly
located, “in a major trade crossroads and subsistence area for the Ute
people.”9 Brigham Young attempted peace keeping strategies between the
settlers and the Native Americans. Young and church authorities had orga-nized
missionary efforts to convert the Natives, due to the Mormon belief
that the Natives derived from the ‘Lamanite’ line that had descended from
the lineage of Israel as taught in Mormon scripture.
Settlers Efforts to Solve Native Problem: Policy Making
Despite peace keeping efforts the Mormon settlers would run into
more conflicts with Native American tribes as their settlements in the Utah
Valley would spread. As conflicts erupted, the settlers and the Natives ex-perienced
problems that broke out in war, such as the Walker War from
1853 until 1854 and the Black Hawk War from 1863 until 1868. These
wars had ensued due to settlers raiding the Native’s supplies in order to
feed themselves. As a result of these issues, the Natives had suffered from
6“Mormons Reach the Great Salt Lake, Utah.” History Today, 47, no. 7: 31. Aca-demic
Search Premier.
7Lewis, David R. “Native Americans in Utah.” Utah History to Go. Utah Gov-ernment.
http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/american_indians/nativeam-ericansinutah.
html.
8Ibid.
9Ibid.
33
disease and starvation. Many of the Native American groups were either
wiped out or were forced to re-locate to a more secure location. The Indian
Bureau and the Mormon Church had attempted to help the Natives by es-tablishing
and operating reservation farms. These attempts, however, had
proved to be completely useless. The Utes were forced to migrate to the
Uintah Valley Indian Reservation that was established in 1861 by Presi-dent
Abraham Lincoln.
In 1863, the federal government attempted to eradicate all Indi-an
land claims in Utah through treaties with the Shoshone, Bannock, and
Goshute tribes. Through these treaties, the government moved these Na-tive
tribes to Indian reservations. Many of these Native American tribes
initially refused to leave their lands, until the government had provided
them with a reservation.
It wasn’t until 1871 that the federal government had decided to
cease instigating treaties to interfere with the Native’s livelihood. To cease
this practice, as of 1887, Congress had passed the Dawes General Allot-ment
Act, which had broken up the reservations into individual farms for
the Natives who were members of tribes that had their land taken away
by the government. The remaining land was opened to the public for sale.
Following the Dawes General Allotment Act, the government
then made attempts to assimilate the Native American people into soci-ety
as American citizens and yeoman farmers. While these measures had
been successful in detribalizing many Native American tribes, these at-tempts
had largely failed, due to many Native’s refusal to farm. Lewis
states that as an end result of the federal government’s allotment of Indian
lands, “tribal land holdings fell from nearly four million acres to 360,000
acres, and individual sale of Indian allotments further reduced Northern
Ute lands.”10 By 1930, more than 80 percent of all Native tribes had their
land taken away. Reservations were faced with dire problems among the
Native inhabitants, such as “poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment,
and health problems.” Due to these crises, the Natives living on these res-ervations
had become dependent on the US government.
During the Great Depression, many Natives were still highly de-pendent
on government aid. The federal government wanted to enable
these Natives to become more self-reliant. In 1934, the US Congress
passed the Wheeler-Howard Act as a part of the New Deal as a way for
the Native American people to become less reliant on government aid.
According to Lewis, most Utah Indian groups had accepted the Wheel-er-
Howard Act and, “elected tribal governments or business committees,
passed laws, and began planning strategies for reservation economic de-
10Lewis.
34
velopment.”11 The jobs and federal aid was a great asset for the Native
American tribes throughout the Great Depression.
Federal policy toward Native American tribes in Utah was making
great progress, until the 1950s when the government’s procedures toward
these tribes had begun to decline. It started when Utah Senator Arthur V.
Watkins, who was the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Subcommit-tee,
had a law passed that eradicated the federal government’s respon-sibility
toward Native American tribes. As part of this act, Watkins had
pressed for the cessation of Native American groups in Utah. As a result,
these Indian tribes, which include the Shivwits, Kanosh, Koorsharem, In-dian
Peaks Paiutes, the Skull Valley and Washakie Shoshone, had lost the
small amount of property they possessed. After these groups lost all that
they had as a result of Walker’s act, the Northern Ute tribe acknowledged
the annihilation of the mixed-blood Utes in Utah, following a drawn out
internal dispute in 1954.
It wasn’t until the late 1950s to 1960s when the federal govern-ment
began to assist the Native American tribes become more self-de-terminant
by providing them with financial assistance from federal and
state agencies, such as the Public Health Service, the Office of Economic
Employment, etc. The main cause for the government’s change of policy
toward the Indians was due to claims these Native American tribes had
made against the government for violating treaty agreements. The Indi-ans
were so successful in making these claims that the federal govern-ment
had paid several million dollars to compensate the natives. The US
government had compensated the Utes with a massive claim settlement
of $47,700,000 in 1962. The second major cause for the federal govern-ment’s
aggressive approach toward helping the Native Americans become
more self-determinant was due to, “the development of mineral deposits
on reservation lands, utilization of water resources, development of recre-ation
and tourism, and industrial development to provide employment for
tribal members.”12
Resolving Current Issues: Policies
And Institutions
To help resolve a few of the issues that Utah is faced with in cur-rently
dealing with sustainable mountain development, government poli-cies
and institutions have been established in order to meet the needs of
Utah’s mountain communities. The institutions set up to address these
needs can be divided up into institutions that have been established spe-cifically
to serve the purpose of sustainable mountain development, and
11 Lewis.
12 Ibid.
35
institutions that are a pre-existing part of the Utah government.
An example of one of Utah’s institutions that have been estab-lished
specifically for the purpose of carrying out the agenda for sus-tainable
mountain development is the Utah Rural Development Council
(URDC). The URDC was set up as a part of the US Department of Ag-riculture’s
State Rural Development Council program in 1994.The pur-pose
of the council is to, “bring together and join with citizens, commu-nity-
based organizations, representatives of the private, public and higher
education sectors, Native Americans, and federal, state and local govern-ment
officials from across Utah to collectively address the economic and
health needs of rural Utah communities and residents.”13 This program
places special emphasis on the involvement of everyone in the Utah com-munity,
citizen and dignitary alike, in an effort to develop the rural areas of
Utah to meet the needs of these rural mountain communities.
Another example of an institution established specifically for sus-tainable
mountain development is the Southern Utah University’s SUU/
Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Collaborating Council. This council was initi-ated
to increase the involvement of the community in sustainable develop-ment
of rural areas, economic development, as well as developing educa-tion
in communities by recruiting students and providing opportunities for
students to get involved in internships.
In order to help the development of tourism and national parks
in Utah through university initiatives, the Outdoor Recreation in Parks &
Tourism Program (ORPT) was initiated. The ORPT works closely with the
Office of Regional Services to educate university students to become qual-ified
workers for a career in outdoor recreation, which includes employ-ment
at local, state and national agencies, protected natural areas, outdoor
leadership and service programs, commercial recreation enterprises, and
wilderness adventure/therapy organizations. Implementing this program
involves arranging guest lectures in ORPT classes, organizing programs
for the Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative, fulfilling the agenda for
the Outdoor Initiative Mountain Ranch endeavors, and participation in up-dating
the ORPT curriculum.
To address issues with climate change in Utah and the Rocky
Mountain region, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) was created. Their
mission is to collaborate with the private sector, civil society, and the fed-eral
government in an effort to create efficient and renewable green ener-gy.
In carrying out these actions, the eight guiding principles that they use
to execute their goals involve advanced resource productivity, whole-sys-
13“Utah Rural Mountain Summit: Current Programs and Activities.” Southern
Utah University. http://www.suu.edu/ad/regional/projects.html.
36
tems design, positive action, market-oriented solutions, end-use/least-cost
approach, biological insight, corporate transformation, and the pursuit of
interconnection. These guiding principles integrated in action help the
RMI fulfill their agenda of “natural capitalism.”14
As part of the state government, Utah has institutions organized
for the purpose of preserving the natural wildlife. A few examples of agen-cies
include the Utah Department of Agriculture, the Utah Department of
Natural Resources, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, the
Utah State Soil Conservation Commission, the US Department of Agri-culture
Natural Resources Conservation Service, etc. All of these agencies
create laws and regulations regarding environmental matters in Utah.15
To help preserve the natural wildlife in Utah, specific policies are
implemented to fit this agenda. For example, Utah Code Title 23 Chapter
14 Section 18 was passed under the Division of Wildlife Resources and
Wildlife Board, which discerns the establishment of seasons, locations,
limits, and regulations by the Wildlife Board. This law is executed to pro-tect
the natural wildlife in Utah by setting regulations on what areas are
open for fishing or hunting, creating refuges and preserves, regulate the
means in which the wildlife will be protected, establish measures and reg-ulations
for the safety of the wildlife and hunters in certain areas, prescribe
hunting permits, etc.16
In Utah Code–Title 03, the Uniform Agricultural Cooperative
Association Act was created to “improve the economic position of agri-culture,
encourage the organization of producers of agricultural products
into effective associations under the control of such producers, and to that
end this act shall be liberally construed.”17 The implementation of this
act entails the improvement of crops, soil conservation and rehabilitation,
enabling member with the supplies needed to utilize for the purposes of
fulfilling this act, generating and distributing electrical energy to mem-bers,
establishing businesses and educational services to members, and
providing aid to finance activities that would fulfill the agenda of the Uni-form
Agricultural Cooperative Association Act.
14“About RMI.” Rocky Mountain Institute. http://www.rmi.org/About%20RMI
15 “Appendix A-Agencies.” NASDA.
16 “Wildlife Resources Code of Utah.” NASDA. “Wildlife Resources Code
of Utah.” NASDA. http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE23/htm/23_14_001800.
htm.”Appendix A-Agencies.” NASDA. http://www.nasda.org/nasda/nasda/foun-dation/
state/ut/ut-adxa.pdf.
17“Uniform Agricultural Cooperative Association Act: General Provisions Relat-ing
to Agricultural Cooperative Associations.” NASDA.
37
Conclusion
The settlement of the Mormon pioneers had greatly influenced the
creation of institutions and policies for sustainable development in Utah
and the Rocky Mountain region. While there are many establishments and
laws that address the needs of Utah’s natural ecosystem, tourism, and rural
areas, there are little to no programs established specifically for the pres-ervation
of the culture of Utah’s native people. Throughout Utah’s history,
the culture of the Native American tribes was exterminated as a result of
the settler’s attempts to assimilate them into American society. Therefore,
it is highly recommended for Utah to create institutions and laws specifi-cally
for the revival and cultivation of the native people who are currently
living in mountain communities.
38
Consequences of Environmental Service
Agreements in Wasatch County
By Jordan Giles
Jordan Giles is a recent graduate from Utah Valley University who majored in Political
Science with an emphasis in International Relations. He has been involved with the Utah
International Mountain Forum and has represented them at a conference in Aspen, Col-orado
and will also be present at the 4th Annual meeting of the Mountain Partnership in
Erzurum, Turkey. Giles is the Social Media Manager for The Cholangiocarcinoma Foun-dation,
a large cancer foundation, and is also politically active in his community. He will
be pursuing a graduate program focused on international relations.
Wasatch County is one of the
most pristine and beautiful rural
counties, not only in Utah, but
also in the entire western United
States. Wasatch County is locat-ed
directly east of both Salt Lake
and Utah Counties. Park City,
which is known for hosting the
Sundance Film Festival, the larg-est
independent film festival in
the United States, is located on
the border and both Wasatch and
Summit Counties share the city
limits.1 Other cities of note within Wasatch County are Heber, Midway,
and Wallsburg as well as a few other small cities2. Wasatch County be-cause
of its natural beauty and mountain location was honored with host-ing
the 2002 Olympic venue, Soldier Hollow, where many Olympic events
were held including the Long Jump. This brought the world to Wasatch
County. Another main attraction of Wasatch County is Strawberry Reser-voir,
which is Utah’s most recognized sport fishery.3The before mentioned
Wasatch County attractions; the 2002 Olympic venue ‘Soldier Hollow’,
and the nationally recognized sport fishery ‘Strawberry Reservoir’, were
able to receive the national recognition in part because of prior environ-
1Balls, Jamie. “History of Park City.” Utah History to Go. Utah Government.
http://historytogo.utah.gov.
2Wasatch County Website http://www.co.wasatch.ut.us/.
3Strawberry Reservoir Information www.utah.com.
MAP from www.utahbirds.org
39
mental service agreements that were put into place many years previous.
This article will look into the economic consequences such environmental
service agreements have had in the development of both Soldier Hollow
and Strawberry Reservoir.
Before diving into the details of environmental service agree-ments,
it is important to learn more about Wasatch County and the im-portant
features and practices it had brought to the larger Utah economy.
Wasatch County ranks as Utah’s thirteenth most populated county hav-ing
a population of just over 23,000 people according the 2010 census.4
Wasatch County is one of Utah’s northern rural counties and boarders both
Salt Lake and Utah Counties. In its early history, Wasatch County was
nicknamed Utah’s Switzerland because of both its unique geographic fea-tures,
including Mount Timpanogos in the west, its climate, and the large
number of Swiss emigrates that settled in Heber Valley.5 In the Beehive
History 14 text, it describes the early history of Wasatch County as the
following:
The first settlers came into Wasatch County from Utah
Valley in the spring of 1859 and located a short dis-tance
north of present Heber City. That same year Mid-way
and Charleston were also settled. In 1862 the ter-ritorial
legislature created Wasatch County, which then
included all of the Uinta Basin. Wasatch in Ute means
“mountain pass” or “low pass over high range”. He-ber
City, named for Mormon Apostle Heber C. Kim-ball,
was selected as the county seat. The last boundary
change occurred in 1914 when Duchesne County was
created out of the eastern half of Wasatch County. The
county produces hay, dairy products, sheep, and cattle.6
Throughout the years the economy of Wasatch County moved
from an agriculturally based, to a mining based, to now a tourism and
serviced based economy. While there are still small agricultural and min-ing-
base operations, tourism and the service industry are the two main
revenue makers for the county. Two popular Wasatch County tourist des-tinations
that will be discussed further are first the 2002 Winter Olympic
venue Soldier Hollow, and the popular sport fishery Strawberry Reservoir.
However one reason these two attractions are being focused on are be-cause
of the environmental service agreements (ESA) that have helped
them maintain their prominent status, not only in Wasatch County, but also
4Utah Census Information onlineutah.com.
5 Utah.gov. Wasatch County History http://pioneer.utah.
6 Beehive History 14: Utah Counties. 1988. Utah State Historical Society.
40
in Utah and throughout the other western states.
Environmental service agreements are agreements between two
cities, usually an upstream and a downstream community (may also in-clude
agreements between cities and counties, cities, counties and a Fed-eral
or State Agency etc) in order to both protect the shared environment
as well as provide and share the economic benefits.7 In Key Issues for
Mountain Areas, Price, Jansky and Latsenia give several reasons why en-vironmental
service agreements are needed.
The first reason given for why environmental service agreements
are needed is because of the downstream effects of mismanagement.8 All
over the world evidence of mismanagement is everywhere, especially in
developing countries. This evidence can be in the form of shallow aquifers
and wells, siltation of hydroelectric facilities and reservoirs because of
hillside erosion, less water retention in the dry season, and more violent
floods in the rainy season. Another major evidence of upstream misman-agement
is water purity. The next reason which is given, is the plight of
mountain dwellers, meaning mountain populations immigrating to other
areas. Mountain peoples are connected to their land, when their land is
good, the people will stay, when the land is poor, the people leave. Moun-tain
areas tend to be poorer, and because of that, often people do not plan
ahead and try to get as much as possible done, in a little time possible.
When this happens, usually the environment is the party that suffers. Also
many populations have outgrown their communities. Overpopulation is
a major problem in many mountain regions.9 The third reason given is
that mountain environments are generally more fragile than other environ-ments.
Mountain regions experience a high differential in temperatures,
which limits the varieties of crops that may be farmed. Mountain soil is
usually thin and erodes easily. In an article entitled, “Land-Use Planning
for Sustainable Highland Farming in the Western Himalayas”, S.K. Garbru
and Pradeep Kumar explain the following about farming in the highlands:
High land farming is a challenge not only to the farm-ers,
but also for the policy planners as well as the re-search
faculty. For reasons of accessibility, the high-land
farmers are isolated from the rest of the world in
terms of meeting the needs of human as well as live-stock
population from the land they own, and the sur-rounding
wastelands, forest lands, grazing lands etc.,
7Price, Martin. Key Issues for Mountain Areas. New York, NY: United Nations
University,2004, 64.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., 65.
41
commonly termed as support lands.10
The fourth and final reason suggested by Price, Jansky, and
Latsenia is the need for payments for environmental services (PES). Mon-etary
compensation, especially in the developing world is essential in or-der
for environmental service agreements to be successful. In many parts
of the developing world, many people go from crisis to crisis with little
thought of future planning. With monetary or other compensation mech-anisms,
additional motivation is provided for cities and organizations to
enter into agreements that will ultimately benefit both, as well as preserve
the environment.
One case study provided by Price, Jansky, and Latsenia involved
a watershed desalination project in Australia. The problem was that over
time, the Murray-Darling watershed and the Macquarie River sub-water-shed
were displaying large amounts of salts and other minerals because of
deforestation upstream. An Australian government agency called the State
Forests of New South Wales (SF) decided to implement a pilot program
entitled, “The Pilot Salinity Control Trade Agreement with Macquarie
River Food and Fibre (MRFF).” This was a market based pilot program.
Essentially, the irrigators, which were using the heavy mineral content
water, agreed to pay US $42 per hectare to SF for them to reforest up-stream
regions for ten years. “SF uses the revenues of this trading scheme
to replant more trees on public and private lands. Private land owners
receive an annuity, by the forestry rights remain with SF.”11 Thus far this
agreement has had few problems and has been used as a template for fu-ture
agreements in Australia.
Returning to our initial discussion regarding Wasatch County,
two local projects, which implemented successful environmental service
agreements, will now be discussed. First, the agreements and compensa-tions
mechanisms surrounding Utah’s most popular sport fishery, Straw-berry
Reservoir, and second, the agreements and compensations mecha-nism
for one of the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games largest and
busiest venue, Soldier Hollow.
Strawberry Reservoir is a manmade reservoir located sixty-five
miles east of the Wasatch Front. The Bureau of Reclamation initially con-structed
the Strawberry Valley Project in 1922 with the main focus on an
8,400-acre reservoir.12 In 1973, it was decided to enlarge the reservoir to
10Ghabru, S.K., and Pradeep Kumar. “Land-Use Planning For Sustainable High-land
Farming in Western Himalayas.” Archives of Agronomy & Soil Science,
48, no. 4 ( 2002): 385-394. Academic Search Premier.
11Price, 67.
12Strawberry Reservoir.
42
17,164 acres. According to the official history found on the Wildlife.Utah.
Gov site:
Strawberry Reservoir has been managed for more than
sixty years for the production of rainbow and cutthroat
trout. Yellowstone cutthroat were introduced into the
reservoir sometime during the mid to late 1930s, and
this species subsequently became hybridized with
rainbow trout. This introduced cutthroat later become
known as the Strawberry cutthroat trout, and has been
widely used in the statewide fisheries management
program.13
In the 1950s the populations of Utah chub, Utah sucker, carp and
yellow perch had exploded and nearly destroyed the trout populations. In
October 1961, the decision was made to chemically treat the reservoir,
with a chemical called rotenone, and essentially kill all fish in order to
start over and carefully control the species of fish in the lake.14 This effort
proved successful. This idea of carful control lead to one of the first envi-ronmental
service agreements in the Wasatch County area and would lead
the way for many others.
In 1973 it was discovered that the Utah chub and sucker had sub-sequently
reappeared and populations rapidly expanded throughout the
80s. In 1986, gill netting confirmed that over 90 percent of the biomass
in the reservoir was non-game fish. In the 1990s it was decided again to
chemically treat the reservoir. It was the largest chemical treatment ever
attempted and was 99 percent effective. After the treatment Strawberry
was stocked with Bear Lake cutthroat trout, sterilized rainbow trout, and
kokanee salmon. Ever since this most recent chemical treatment Strawber-ry
Reservoir has remained Utah’s top sport fishery. In 2010 it is estimated
that Strawberry Reservoir brought in $20 million to the state, 14 percent
of total state hours spent fishing were at Strawberry, and anglers spent ap-proximately
1.5 million hours on its waters.15 Because of the environmen-tal
service agreements as well as the payments for services acted into by
both the Bureau of Reclamation as well as partnerships between Wasatch
Counties and the communities located within, Strawberry Reservoir has
become and been able to maintain its status as a major tourist destination,
sport fishery, and economic driver for the county.
The next major attraction and economic driver for Wasatch Coun-
13Background and History wildlife.utah.gov.
14 http://harvester.lib.utah.edu/wwdl/index.php/record/view/5441
15 Serdar, David. Uinta National Forest. What’s at Risk. www.sportsmen4re-sponsibleenergy.
org
43
ty, which we will discuss, is the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter
Games venue, Soldier Hollow.
In a conference call late Wednesday with Gov. Mike
Leavitt’s office and representatives of a rival bid from
Sherwood Hills, a private resort at the edge of the
Cache Valley, Edwards said he was unsure which site
the state’s political muscle would choose to back. It
wasn’t until Thursday morning that the outcome be-came
evident. “When they flashed the slides up com-paring
the sites during that meeting (of the Salt Lake
Organizing Committee), it was just too obvious,” said
Robyn Pearson, the local Chamber of Commerce rep-resentative
in attendance. In the end, SLOC chose Sol-dier
Hollow despite the better-financed bid from Sher-wood
Hills and a more politically popular spot above
Provo.16
The City of Midway was chosen for its prime location and the
right amounts of average snow and the right proximity to Salt Lake City
and other main Olympic venues. Soldier Hollow is located close to Heber
City, which is located fifty-three miles south of Park City. Many envi-ronmental
service agreements were implemented for this project. Soldier
Hollow was developed in such a way that, “… Soldier Hollow is con-sidered
to be one of the most environmentally friendly of the Salt Lake
Olympics venues - largely due to the fact that the area was not in a pristine
state before it was developed for use in the Olympics.”17 These agreements
came in the form of planting new trees and groundcover to avoid erosion
because of new development, protection and management of many of the
streams in the Jordan watershed area, as well as a limit to the kinds of bus-ses,
which would be allowed to transport guests to and, from the venue.
Also in addition to busses, as special station for the Heber Creepers, (his-toric
steam trains) were constructed to provide additional transportation.18
A great deal of time and funds were spent insuring that there would not
be any environmental scars in the Soldier Hollow and Snow Basin areas
because of the Olympics.
16Cates, Karl. “Midway Celebrates an Olympic Decision.” Deseret News, Oct
10, 1997. www.deseretnews.com/article/588004/Midway-celebrates-an-Olym-pic-
decision.html.
17Lazaroff, Cat. “Winter Olympics not a Green Triumph.” . Ens-Newswire.
www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2002/2002-02-11-06.html.
18Twyman, Gib. “Full Steam Ahead for Creeper 02’” Deseret News.
April 1 2012. www.deseretnews.com/article/798520/Full-steam-ahead-for-
Creeper-in-02.html
44
After the initial sustainable construction and environmental con-servation
practices were implemented, the Soldier Hollow Olympic ven-ue
was complete. Soldier Hollow was the busiest venue during the 2002
Olympic Winter Games. Twenty-three events were hosted at the venue
including the biathlon, cross-country skiing, and the Nordic combined.19
Since the 2002 Olympics, Soldier Hollow remained a popular
tourist destination. In the winter there is tubing and cross-country skiing,
in the summer there are hiking and biking trails. Soldier Hollow has con-tinued
to develop land around the venue and it now hosts a 36-hole golf
course and a variety of other attractions. The implementation of environ-mental
service agreements at the beginning of the development of Soldier
Hollow has paved the way for it to remain one of Wasatch Counties prime
tourist destination bringing millions into the Utah economy.
In conclusion, it can be seen that environmental service agree-ments
have been very beneficial both to the people and to the economy
Wasatch County. They have helped drive the economy of Wasatch County
by providing an environmentally friendly, yet economically stimulating at-traction
that many Utahans enjoy. Soldier Hollow especially, has become a
benchmark for other Winter Olympic venues to be measured by because of
its small environmental footprint and the post-Olympic revenue which has
been brought in. The successful treatment and retreatment of Strawberry
Reservoir has shown that when agencies on a local and state level work to-gether,
through environmental service agreements and payments for envi-ronmental
services, substantial progress can be made. It will be important
to remember these successes as new projects come into development so as
to both protect our environment as well as provide an economic stimulus
to communities all throughout mountain regions.
Additional Resources:
Johnson, Jim. Environmental Assessment of Plans to Restore the Straw-berry
Valley Rishery. 1st. 87-14. Salt Lake City: Utah Division of
Wildlife Resources, 1969. 27-89.
Scheberle, Denise. Federalism and Environmental Policy: Trust and the
Politics of Implementation. 1st. Washington DC: Georgetown
University Press, 1997. 159-78.
Smith , Zachary. The Environmental Policy Paradox. 3rd ed. Upper Sad-dle
River: Prentice Hall, 2000. 284.
19Soldier Hollow Information Utah.com/olympics/.
45
Sustainable Mountain Development:
State Rights vs. Federal Rights
By Thomas Hone
Currently, Thomas Hone is working on a master’s degree in International Affairs and
Global Enterprise at the University of Utah while trying to master Arabic. He graduated
from Utah Valley University in 2012 with a degree in Political Science with an emphasis in
International Affairs and minors in History and American Indian Studies. Hone has always
had an interest in understanding why nations and people make the choices they do and
how that might affect their relationship with others, especially when it comes to the Middle
East. After finishing his degree he hopes to live internationally, working with others, to
shape policy that will not only further strengthen US security interests but strengthen ties
between the people of the Middle East and the United States.
Over thirty million acres in the state of Utah are controlled by
the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).1 This comes to approximately
seventy percent of the land in Utah. In much of this land, there have
been discoveries of valuable resources such as natural gas and oil, both of
which are growing in value and importance as the nation as a whole faces
potential energy crises. In both the past and present, it has been left up to
the BLM and not the state to decide which areas can be accessed for the
purpose of mining/drilling and who is able to do it. The question that is
raised is this the best policy? Should a federal organization decide what
is best for a state, especially in a state where the majority of its land and
energy potential are controlled not by them? The answer to this is simple,
no. The decision in how land should be used and protected should be done
at both a local level and a federal level. This will be shown by examining
the history of the BLM; the role that it plays in land and energy policy;
how this policy has affected Utah; the issues surrounding energy policy
in Utah; what control of its land could mean for the state both policy and
revenue wise; and how this could be accomplished.
History of the Bureau of Land Management
The origins of the Bureau of Land Management can be traced to
the beginnings of the United States and the passage of the Northwest Or-dinance
and the Land Ordinance of 1785. The purpose of these ordinances
were to ensure that the Federal Government would be the one directing
and controlling how the west was to be settled. This began the precedence
of the Federal Government being able to control how land was to be used
and what it was to be used for. After these early ordinances were passed,
and the American people began to move further west, a number of other
1 “Energy, Environment and Federal Lands,” Welcome to Congressman Jason
Chaffetz. http://chaffetz.house.gov/issue/energy-environment-federal-lands.
46
ordinances followed in order to deal with any new problems that began
to arise from the movement. This pattern would continue to until the late
1800s when the policy began to shift. It soon became realized that the land
that held valuable resources and is of such wonder and beauty that they
would need to be protected. Thus, instead of using land to promote settle-ment
and private ownership the Federal Government shifted its policy to
encourage public ownership. An example of this shift in policy was the
creation of Yellowstone National Forest which was then followed by the
creation of Yellowstone National Park.2
The area that would become known as Yellowstone National Park
was largely unexplored. It had been bypassed by Lewis and Clark and it
was not until further exploration of the West by the military and mountain
men that its wonders and beauty began to be known. Then an expedition
led by FV Hayden compiled large amounts of date, paintings, and photo-graphs.
These were then taken back to Washington D.C. and used to con-vince
the US Congress and President Grant that if something was not done
the area would face the same fate as that of Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls,
another ecological wonder, had been turned into private economic side-show
in which only the upper class was able to enjoy. In addition to this
private ownership of the area much of the natural beauty was beginning to
be lost due to economic advancement.3 FV Hayden did not want the area
now known as Yellowstone to follow a similar fate. He envisioned an
area that would be free of industrialization and free for all to enjoy and in
March of 1872, the US congress and the President Grant signed it into law.
Thus began the policy of setting aside land for the use of the public and the
preservation of natural beauty. After this change in policy war time issues
caused a shift back to original issues and a less of focus on preservation.4
However, in 1972, the idea of preservation and environmentalism arose
once more to send the focus back to the creation of protected areas. This
2United States, Bureau of Land Mangement, National Science & Technology
Center, The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, by Terry D’Er-chia,
Peter Doran, and Lee Barkow (Colorado: BLM), pg. #.http://rs6.loc.gov/
cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl.
3 “Falling for Niagara.” The New York State Preservationist 6, no. 1 (Fall 2002):
14-15.
An Act For the control and regulation of the waters of Niagara River, for the
preservation of Niagara Falls, and for other purposes, 34 626 §§ 3621-628
(1906).
4Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive
Conservation Movement, 1890-1920. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1999.
47
attitude has, since that period played a major role in US politics.5
This change in policy began to cause more issues to arise. Such
as what part of the Federal Government would monitor such land and how
was it to be founded. In addition to this on many of these lands there was
discovered valuable resources such as coal, oil, and other precious metals
that would benefit both the local and national economy and the questions
arose on whether or not these resources could be acquired and if so by
who? In the West especially, oil was being discovered and the land was
being claimed so quickly by others that it was feared that in a matter of
months there would be no open land. Thus, this act was passed and the
power to determine who would have access to the minerals on land was
given to the Federal Government. In addition to this, as settlement[s] of
the West began to increase it was seen that land would be needed for graz-ing
and just as with the oil, it was seen that someone would need to ensure
that not all the land was lost to the ranchers.6 The issue with these acts is
that it gave various departments within the Federal Government overlap-ping
control and it was seen that a central department would be needed to
manage the everyday task.
In 1946 these various powers and responsibilities were combined
into one single entity, known as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The early years of this organization were chaotic. The department itself
found that there many laws on the book that contradicted one each other
and that the department itself had no power to change or enact any new
policy of its own. This would still have to come from other departments.
This meant that the Bureau of Land Management was unable to fully en-force
any policy or make any much needed changes. It would not be until
1976 when Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act
of 1976. In this act Congress noted the value of certain public lands and
that more would need to be done to manage them correctly. Thus, power
was given to the Bureau of Land Management to address topics such as
land planning, acquisition, administration of federal land and range man-agement.
Thus, nearly two hundred years after the idea of managing and
preserving land was thought up, a department with the ability and power
to do so now existed.7
5Merrill, Marlene D. Yellowstone and the Great West: Journals, Letters, and
Images from the 1871... Lincoln: Univ Of Nebraska Press, 2003.
6Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 30 U.S.C. § 181 et seq.
7United States, Bureau of Land Mangement, National Science & Technology
Center, The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, by Terry D’Er-chia,
Peter Doran, and Lee Barkow (Colorado: BLM), pg. #. http://rs6.loc.gov/
cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl.
48
Role of the Bureau of Land Management
Simply put the role of the Bureau of Land Management is to sus-tain
the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for enjoy-ment
of present and future generations and ensure that the United States
has access to natural resources in order to sustain itself. These two goals
seem to be at odds with each other. On the one hand it is up to the Bureau
of Land Management to restrict access to certain areas due to environmen-tal
sensitivity, promote new areas to come under federal protection and
to manage said areas while at the same time allowing areas to mined and
drilled for natural resources.
The Bureau of Land Management has under its jurisdiction two
hundred and sixty-one million acres of land. This includes nearly sixty
national parks and other types of protective land. Most of this land is to
be protected from industrialization, mining, and drilling due to the wildlife
and historic sites it may contain and for preserving open space. As stated,
it is the Bureau of Land Management’s goal to preserve public lands for
the enjoyment of all. This includes taking provisions to protect the various
plant and animal species that exist on the land. To achieve this goal the
Bureau of Land Management has set aside land not to be used for develop-ment,
of which includes roughly ninety million acres for big game species,
host two hundred and twenty-eight environmentally sensitive plant and
animal species and seeks to irradiate nonnative species. Examples of this
are found by the re-introduction of wolves to areas such as Yellowstone
and the desire to create a preserve in the Midwest for creatures such as
the buffalo. The purpose of this is to ensure that these native species will
be able to not only survive but also continue to grow so that they can be
enjoyed by all for years to come. In addition to the preserving of land
and creature, it is also the Bureau of Land Management’s responsibility
to preserve water sources. This is especially important out West where
water can be scarce. Thus, they need to ensure that there is water that
can be used for agriculture, ranching, and drinking. In order to do this
they have in their control one hundred and forty-four thousand miles of
riparian-lined streams and thirteen million acres of wetlands. In addition,
they have overseen the creation of a number of dams in order to ensure
that water can be stored for in times of drought. Lastly, various historical
sites also fall under their control. As settlement of the West continued, it
was realized that steps would need to be taken to preserve the history of
the United States in order to allow future generations to enjoy them. These
include sites such as ancient Native American ruins, early settlements, and
other sites that are deemed to have historical and culture value.8
8 United States, Bureau of Land Management.
49
On the other side is the Bureau of Land Management’s goal to
ensure that the United States will have access to certain strategic natural
resources. This goal is smaller in wording but just as large and great re-sponsibility
as the culture and environmental side. This would include
oil, coal, and natural gas, and the lands in the western half if the United
States held many of these resources. In addition, they were being taken
for the use in the private sector and it became a worry within the federal
government that in time of hardship or war they may need to be able to
exert more control of the use of these resources. Thus, under the idea of
national security the federal government directed that a certain number of
lands be held and protected for just such times.9
These missions appear to be at odds with each other. On the one
hand, it is the Bureau of Land Management’s responsibility to ensure that
environmental and historical sensitive sites are protected from develop-ment
and are able to be enjoyed by all, while at the same time allowing
economic development to better the United States economy. Such a com-plex
goals become even more complicated when it must not only take into
account the effect that such polices may have at the federal level but the
state level as well.
The Issues
The main issue lies in the idea of who actually has the power. To
understand the issues fully it first needs to be understood where it began.
At the United States formation there was one thing on every one’s mind,
where should the power lie? It was seen after the revolutionary war that
a strong central government would be needed if peace between the colo-nies
was to last. Thus, leaders of the colonies met to determine just how
this government would work. There were two sides to this issue. On the
one side colonies such as New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania sought
an agreement where the majority of the power would lie within the larger
colonies while others such as Delaware, Rhode Island and other small
colonies wanted to make sure that they had a voice in the government and
would not be overshadowed. After days of deliberation, they would come
up with a compromise that would not only satisfy both the large and small
colonies but create a government that would allow for power to exist at a
state and federal level. The problem that has arisen with this compromise
is that there have been times in which these two powers have been at odds
with one each other. This is especially seen in the battle over land control
in Utah.
As noted before in the history and roles of Bureau of Land Man-agement
they have been commissioned by the Federal Government to con-
9 United States, Bureau of Land Management.
50
trol some land for various purposes. In the State of Utah, approximately
67 percent of the land is held by the Federal Government. This includes
five national parks, seven national monuments, two national recreational
areas, one national historic site six national forest, and other land deemed
either environmentally sensitive or strategic for its’ resources. The reason
behind why so much land is in the control of the Federal Government can
be found within the theories of the Key Issues for Mountain Areas. With-in
the book it speaks of a number of issues that face mountainous areas,
namely the best approach to maintain sustainability in mountainous areas
and at what level of government should have the control. In Chapter 7, it
creates categories that mountainous areas can fall. The one pertaining to
the issues in Utah is high environmental /low linkage area. This means
that a majority of land in Utah is deemed to be environmentally sensitive
and since for the most part these areas are not populated ideas where need-ed
to preserve them. The one that is a proven technique to handle this is
the creation of national/state parks or other types of protected land. This
technique allows environmentally sensitive land to be protected and to
control growth of certain areas to be able to sustain the area.10 This is not
the issue. The majority of those within the state of Utah believe that land
should be protected; the issue then lies in who decides what gets the label
of a national park/monument and what can be developed.
Federal Government Perspective
The main goal of the Federal Government is in any capacity is to
create a streamlined and universal process that affects everyone equally.
Thus, its goal is to ensure environmentally sensitive land and resources are
held to the same level of protection from state to state. There are a number
of reasons behind this. The first being that politics vary from state to state,
this means that each state will place various level of importance on land
within their state. Such as where one state may seek to preserve an area
of land due to its historic/environmental value while another may look at
the same piece of land and believe that it is in its best interest to obtain
the resources that or held there. This could lead to a loss of environmen-tally
sensitive land or the loss of value resources.11 The second involves
business. Just as business, technology, and resources vary from country
to country it also varies from state to state within the United States. States
that are rich in resources such as oil, coal or natural gas seek to improve
revenue by being able to access and sell the land. In addition as seen just
10Price, Martin F., Libor Jansky, and Andrei A. Iastenia. “7.” Key Issues for
Mountain Areas. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2004.
11VanAsselt, Wendy, and Layke Christian. “Protecting the Best of the West.”
Issues in Science & Technology, 3:4

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